Simple Smiles

This weekend, the sun has finally made an appearance in my part of the word, and it has been joyous! It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter, and I have been longing for those golden rays for many weeks now. I was however recently reminded by a loved one that there are other ways to find happiness and that being the light in someone else’s darkness is a really good one.

In honour of them and that hit of much needed vitamin D; I am compiling this list of simple ways to smile. Look out for the links attached to the blue underlined words. They lead to little things that make me smile so they might just work for you too.

• Dress in Something You Love Every Day.

Even if it’s boxers or a bracelet that no-one else can see underneath the rest of your clothes, put it on, just because it gives you a boost. Smile throughout the day whenever you see them or remember that you have them on. Wear your favourite top today. Then change your mind and make tomorrow’s your new favourite when you put that on.

• Choose a Favourite Everything.

On the subject of favourites, have a favourite everything. I don’t mean song or movie or artist, I mean a favourite letter of the alphabet; a favourite spot on the wall at home because

of the pattern on the wallpaper there or the way the light through the window hits it at a certain time of day. A favourite shape; a favourite plant; a favourite product packing that appeals to your aesthetic because of the colours or the picture on the box or the memory it invokes. Even if you don’t put it in your basket, when you see it in the supermarket your mouth will curve up at the sides knowing that your brain associates it with a happy thought.

Stuck in traffic today, I decided the letter Z was my favourite because it looks cool and it is fun to say. It kept me smiling when we were at a standstill because the number plate in front contained it. That’s what brought it to my attention that it is a pretty cool letter.

• Collect Cool Facts.

Think of how many you already know! I learned that neurodivergents do a thing called info dumping. It stuck in my head because it gave a name to what I do when someone brings certain topics into the conversation and I suddenly riff on everything I know about that subject – Wicked the Musical and what inspired Gregory Maguire to write the book on which it is based. Dr Seuss or Julia Donaldson or special kinds of numbers or why the lambanana is a symbol of Liverpool or… you get the idea!

Here is a cool fact connected to our last bullet point. Zyzzyva is the last word in the English dictionary. It is a type of beetle. In writing this post I found myself on the Wiki page and learned that the name was believed to be made up as a joke by a naturist who wanted to have the last word!

• Use Too Many Exclamation Marks!

Blogging alerted me to my overuse of this particular form of punctuation. Today I have decided that in certain contexts overuse does not apply! So I’mma litter those things everywhere when I get the chance because they are a sign that I am enthusiastic – isn’t that one of the many forms of happiness, just like smiling? What is your exclamation mark equivalent? Maybe it’s a sound or a gesture you made spontaneously until someone pointed it out and made you self-conscious about it. In those moments when you don’t need to restrain yourself, throw those enthusiastic accents around like confetti and let everyone know you’re smiling with something other than your mouth.

• Compliment Someone…

…on their smile, or on anything nice you notice about them. Feel good about noticing the nice things in our days that are all around us, but the pressures of modern life have made us blind to. Then make the source feel good by sharing with them. How good has it made you feel to get a thank you for something you were doing anyway or someone admiring the bracelet you put on not thinking anyone else would notice? Remember those moments with a smile.

Do this especially with young people. Building self esteem at a young age is key to a happier adulthood. If you compliment their outfit, they will learn to dress for happiness and self-expression without reading it in a blog post. If you compliment their manners, or how they discuss their feelings, or how well they apply themselves to something difficult, not only are you encouraging them to demonstrate and build on those attributes as they grow, but they will instil them in young people they have influence over. They will model it for people around them and show them how to do it too. Isn’t that a cool ripple effect to be responsible for?

• Notice the Beauty in Nature

I did this today too! Because along with the sunshine, the daffodils are sprouting and there were some lovely purple, white and yellow flowers lining the side of the road at different spots on my journey. I don’t know what those flowers are called and it’s a fact I don’t feel the need to collect because just their existence is enough to raise a smile.

Please, don’t wait for springtime to find beaty in the outdoors. Look for the stunning autumnal colours, especially those deep red leaves you find amongst all the browns when they are littered on the ground. Look for the frost coated spiderweb on the fence when you leave the house on a cold winter day (Feel free to tell the spider what a good job they did. Why should humans be the only thing you compliment?) Put a damn coat on and get out no matter what the weather is doing. The Big Yin said it best: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing.”

If going outdoors is a genuine challenge for whatever reason, get a cup of something you love and take a minute to look out of a window or close your eyes and think of the last beautiful spot you visited and everything that made it beautiful.

• Sing Like No-one is Listening; Dance Like No-one is Watching

This one is a cliché, I know. Please believe me, if you can do this with genuine abandon, the dopamine will rush through you like it’s being delivered intravenously! I don’t need encouragement for the former, although I do need to remember to go for the high notes even though I know I’ll never reach them, and take pleasure in whatever note I land on cos no-one is listening anyway! The latter is harder. I do not move well and get extremely self-conscious about it even when I’m alone, but every now and again I find myself shaking my booty whilst doing the dishes or bopping around as I gather up the laundry. I realise I’m feeling happy completely inartificially.

Make yourself a playlist and each time a song makes you want to sing along or move your body in time with the music, add it to the playlist. Give it a name that you can smile about, whatever appeals to your brand of humour. Me and some friends like to do this with the reference when we transfer each other money; often the word or phrase is rude, even if it doesn’t appear so to an outside observer.

I found out recently that acquaintances of mine have a WhatsApp group called ‘Only Farts.’ The rules are do not type anything in the chat. Voice notes only, but no voices. You are only permitted to record your flatulence and share it. If you’re in a chat where voice notes are frequently exchanged, you’ll know that they play back-to-back if there two or more in a row. So the person who shared this info said they often play a whole string to effectively create a symphony of …bum notes?

• Be Foolish

At some point, I will write a very serious post about the ways in which we have been conditioned and controlled as a society. Let me say here that not “making a fool of yourself” has been drummed into many of us from all directions as long as we can remember. Why?! We are never so free and full of joy as when we are behaving like fools! Allow yourself to be childlike and enjoy the world as you did before people told you how you were supposed to behave. There is no age limit to being carefree, just times where it is no longer appropriate as an adult. But every adult should hold on to their inner child and let it out to play as often as they can!

As well as booty shaking whilst carrying out those boring household chores, I often have a little boogie in the driver’s seat when safe to do so. In fact, there are songs I cannot play when I’m driving because the urge to move them hips and shake those cheeks is so strong that a crash is bound to happen sooner or later.

Feel free to picture all the ways in which I have been a fool today with the intention of spreading smiles, or simply because it’s been such a great day that I don’t care if people are judging me. I have had a tough week where someone else had to be the light in my darkness, and to have reached the end of it feeling so freaking happy makes me not give a damn if folks think I’m on day release from a local facility. I am going to ride the wave in the hope that when those dark days come calling again, I can raise a smile remembering one of these moments or any of the things I have written about here.

I do not find happiness easy to come by and was far too old when I realised it. So forgive me for indulging in all the people, places and things where I find happiness. I am writing this post for everyone and I’m writing it for myself. Most of all I am writing it for everyone who feels surprised when realising they are in a happy, carefree moment. I’m writing it for the people who get carried away and maybe even addicted to a thing they’ve discovered brings them happiness, until that thing becomes tainted and instead of making them smile on their dark days, it becomes another thing weighing them down because they messed it up. I’m writing it to give permission to those who’ve never had it to find joy in little things, hold it for just a moment, feel it, commit it to memory.

No external being can tell you what to think and feel, but sometimes our own minds work against us. Fuel your mind with all these simple things and it won’t be fuelled by negativity quite so easily. Give yourself permission to feel happy and live happily even if things are not how you want them to be. You’ll never have a perfect body, a perfect job, a perfect home and probably not ever a perfect relationship. Your imperfect past cannot be changed but that’s exactly what it is – past. Done. Face ahead and resolve to allow happiness in at every tiny, silly, unexpected opportunity.

I have had so much fun writing this post that I am taken aback by this change in tone. I choose to leave it here, in what was supposed to be a light-hearted bit of writing, because I am not the only one who needs to remember it. Someone needs to see in black and white that the post wasn’t written by a person who wakes up happy and enjoys their days; in fact, I find life extremely challenging.

This post was written by someone who is still learning how to be happy in a healthy way. It was written by someone who honestly believes that EVERYONE can find a smile in the simplest of things no matter what the past has thrown at them. It was written by someone who wants that for all who read it and all who don’t, and who understands feeling like you can’t have it or don’t deserve it.

I will round off with those details of my foolishness in the hope that we are all left with a smile as we reach the last bit of punctuation. I don’t know what that will be because I haven’t got there yet, but I hope it will be an exclamation mark!

Stuck in traffic, I was blasting out some of those happy tunes, having a little boogie, and a driver leaving the place we were queuing to get into commented through their window. My friend was in their car behind and messaged “What has she just said to you?” Of course I didn’t know, I was having my own little party (we believe it was something about enjoying yourself). I turned the music and the moves up so more people could enjoy it with me!

I wrote the bulk of this post sitting in a pub. I laughed and cringed and covered my face at some of the memories it invoked. In the busy pub, I could hear too many conversations and had to put my earbuds in to block them out. I got excited and visibly animated when the random playlist threw out a song I loved.

One such song was Mr Boombastic. When I was a carefree twenty something, one of my friends always sang this at karaoke. I smiled so broadly at the memory that one of my earbuds popped out! When this happened again and I had to scoop it up from the floor, I realised my ears are not symmetrical or my smile is wider on one side…and I laughed at the thought before returning the earbud to my left ear.

Not once did I care who might be looking or what attention it would draw. I had a great day with sunshine and great friends. I wasn’t going to dilute that for anyone! Next time you feel the urge to dilute your happiness, fight it with a great big smile!!!