Happy Life Hack: Smile And The World Smiles Back
It’s amazing how your body language, mood and confidence changes when you smile.
It’s worth cultivating such habits as they have an effect on your state of mind and how other folks perceive you.
Actually, I’d go as far as saying that your smile is the best way to open yourself up to the world. It’s through your smile that friendships are born and lives are changed, for the better.
Remember that your smile is an outward, physical projection that, when authentic, has the capacity to disarm suspicion, encourage conversation and lead to positive outcomes.
Smiling is a key component to creating a happy and successful life. And it does this by subtly changing your worldview.
Imagine you’re out and about, on a walk or a run.
All of a sudden the sky bursts open and rain begins to fall.
What do you make of such an event?
Do you get upset and bemoan the lack of a hairdryer?
Or do you send a few words of thanks out to the cosmos? After all, the farmers must be experiencing real hardship following a prolonged dry spell.
Together with sunlit, plants and animals require water to survive. Needless to say, without healthy plants and animals, you might as well press delete on the human species.
I think it’s good to be mindful of such basic concepts the next time your hair frizzles as a consequence of being out and about when it rains.
One thing I love about the rain is that you really know you’re alive when you’re in it.
I’ve been soaked to the bone, standing under a monsoonal downpour while waiting outside the gates at the Australian Embassy in New Delhi.
All my money, onward flight tickets and passport had been stolen while on a train journey from Varanasi to Agra.
Fortunately, a fellow traveler had loaned me enough money to travel onto New Delhi.
I remember the guard on duty, comfortably enclosed in his sentry box, who wouldn’t allow me to shelter inside during the lunch break. So I waited outside the gates, in the open, for a full hour.
Bureaucrats!
I also remember crossing over the border from Tibet to Nepal in 1988 only to find the roads had been washed away by flooding rains.
After a thrilling drive, feeling my lungs filling with air, we descended from the high altitude Tibetan plateau down to the Chinese border town of Zhangmu, at a respectful altitude of 7,500 feet (2,300 metres).
It was only then that my travel companions and I were told we had to hike over the border between the towns of Zhangmu, in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, and the village of Kodari on the Nepalese side.
No problem, though the hike between the two was a strange no-man’s land, acting as a buffer zone between the two countries.
I recall an immaculately attired and beautifully spoken Chinese customs guard jumping out from behind a rock to question me. Fortunately, after quite a long conversation I was, eventually, allowed to continue my journey into Nepal.
The plan was to catch a bus from the border town of Kodari onward for 89 miles (144 km) to Kathmandu. Unfortunately, travel plans don’t always go to schedule.
It was then that we learned about the roads being washed away somewhere further ahead.
There was nothing else for it but to hike onward, keeping on the road when we could and scrambling up and down the steep mountain slopes where landslides prevented our onward progress.
Fortunately, near the end of a our first day, we walked into a village and found accomodation inside a small family run inn. Actually, I think it was just a house.
We arrived during the twilight. The location was romantic, with the house located at the base of a waterfall, and I only wish we’d got there earlier. I would love to have explored the site further, but it had been raining most of the day and we were all worn out.
There was nothing else for it but to get out of the weather and seek what comfort we could inside.
The accomodations were spartan, but we were fed, able to change into dry clothes and given a place to sleep. And for that we were all very grateful indeed.
I can tell you the sounds that waterfall made that night were absolutely thunderous. Despite being in awe of our location, and the adventure unfolding around us, I hardly slept a wink given the din outside.
The rains continued, as did my travel companions and I, for the best part of our second unexpected day hiking into Nepal. Eventually we reached a village where the road was unaffected and we were able to board a bus and continue our journey onto Kathmandu.
It was a real adventure, though I could have done without the severe case of gairdia I picked up at a local cafe while for the bus to arrive.
That nasty stomach bug plague me for 6 weeks, until I met a Swedish doctor, posted with the United Nations peacekeeping force in Srinagar, Kashmir who gave me a dose of Flagyl. Within a day or two I was fine.
Following floods and an earthquake the border crossing between Zhangmu and Kodari remains closed to foreigners. It’s a pity, both for the livelihood of the good folk on either side of the border, but also for intrepid travelers like me.
There’s another crossing, but I would like to have repeated my original journey from Lhasa to Kathmandu. It’s so long ago now, and all that remains are faint memories.
What’s more, due to camera and film processing problems, almost all of my photos from that trip, my very first overseas adventure, were lost.
Fortunately, some memories remain. Some aren’t at all pleasant, but I prefer to think about the positive ones, which all involve smiling. I certainly laughed a lot, and I was pleased to bring a smile to so many people I met along the way.
A lot of my photography is related to the human condition.
I’m fascinated by how the positive and negative experiences that occur throughout our lives are shaped, for better and for worse, by how we perceive those experiences and the reality we create for ourselves based upon what we perceive.
Of course, it’s not just what happens to us but, more importantly, how we perceive what happens to us that determines the reality of the moment and the degree of happiness and success we experience in our lives.
Have no doubt, facing each and every day with a smile can impact your life in a variety of ways, including the following:
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A positive impact on how you feel about yourself.
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A positive influence on how others feel about you.
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A positive influence on your worldview.
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A positive impact on what happens to you.
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A positive influence on how you perceive what happens to you and how that will affect your life going forward.
So you see, having experienced my fair share of rain, I’m not all that put out by it.
Usually the trade off for an adventure, that comes at the expense of a little discomfort, is more than enough to tip the scales towards the positive and put a smile on even the weariest of faces.
That’s the thing about hardship and discomfort. They make you more appreciative of how lucky you are and how good your life actually is.
Though I’m not at all in favor of extended periods of hardship and discomfort, I remind myself that my happy life hack, to remember to smile, has got me through my share of difficult times in the past.
And, if need be, it will again in the future.
But, why wait. It’s better to prepare by staying positive and enjoying life along the way by putting a smile on the dial and facing each and every day with a good measure of happiness.
Wouldn’t you agree?