“We’re all mad here”

– Cheshire Cat

Breathe in. Breathe out. Smile! That wasn’t so hard, was it? Smile. A smile is definitely what everyone needs these days, especially if you’re starting to go madder than the Mad Hatter. You probably hear that word every day: “Smile for the camera!” or “Where’s grandma’s big smile?”. But were any of those smiles genuine?

A smile is a sign of happiness or to show amusement to someone or something. Most of the time, you’re told to smile or you feel obligated to smile out of respect. But have you ever smiled for yourself, and not for others? Not to a funny YouTube video or TikTok, or for a picture, or to greet someone? It’s always something or someone that makes you smile. Never you. Have you ever felt incredibly blessed and happy to be alive and you feel so amazing that you slowly lift the corners of your mouth out of genuine happiness? Those cheshire cat smiles are rare.

So why do humans need a particular element in our lives in order to smile? Why not smile for fun at random times during the day? As humans, we tend to constantly worry about the past or the future, but rarely the present. These worries take over our minds and distract us from the wonderful things to smile for. Take another second to take a deep breath in and out. How do you feel? Be in the present moment. Everything will be okay. Stop worrying about that chemistry exam tomorrow, or why they’re not texting back, or even the embarrassing thing you did the other day. The future hasn’t happened yet, and the past already happened. Your life is like a book: today is the page you are currently on, the past is the pages before the current one, and the future is the pages after that are completely blank. You write your story, your future, the next chapter. Take authority of your pencil and claim your life. 

Smiles are contagious. Ironically, you’ll only receive joy from this “disease”. Imagine a set of dominoes, lined up to form a huge circle. You give the very first domino you placed down the slightest push, and one by one, the rest of the dominoes fall. Hopefully in a perfectly shaped circle. Smiling is like the domino effect. Here’s another scenario because why not: you walk down the street to, let’s say Domino’s Pizza, and smile at a random stranger waiting at the bus stop. That stranger (whose name is Joey, by the way) gets on the bus and smiles at the woman sitting across from him (her name is Monica) and says, “How you doin’?”. Monica is a waitress at Moondance Diner, and because of that smile she was given on the bus, she wipes away the bad morning she had and greets everyone in the diner with a smile. And so on and so on. You probably don’t realize it, but even the smallest action you do can make someone’s day ten times better. Start the smile effect. 

The big takeaway is to just smile. Very simple, just pretend you’re the cheshire cat as Alice runs around Tulgey Wood. And also, pineapple DOES go on pizza, not that it relates to anything, but they DO belong on pizza. I guess you can go about your day now, but WAIT! Where’s grandma’s big smile? 

🙂