[Crisis & Awakening - II]
I remember being told as a child that a smile requires fewer muscles than frowning, so I should “turn my frown upside down.” I understand the sentiment behind the directive: happiness is better than sadness, so let’s do the simple things within our power to avoid the latter.
Unfortunately "putting a smile on" is only appearance manufacturing. There’s no correlation between engaging our maxillofacial “smile muscles” and our complex emotional landscape. It's pseudo happiness that we think convinces the outside world that we are truly happy. It doesn’t work.
A sincere smile requires no cognizant muscle engagement. No reminders. No encouragement. No coercion. No mandate.
A smile is as much in you eyes as in your lips, your neck and shoulders and chest as in your cheeks. It begins from a place that is deeper than muscular engagement.
Sincere smiles begin in your center. Where truth sits. Where love rests. Where empathy is born.
This is why revival often shows itself not in religious displays and pious acts, but in frequent “attacks” of smiling. Sincere, wonderful smiling.
