Is it faceplant time?
lie
‘Tis true. I’m still being supported by an eons-old smile, one that has stayed with me for a million years (give or take.) What gives?
Getting way ahead of myself. When younger, much younger, I was just chock full of judgments about the physical appearance of others. (Wincing, serious wincing.) My prism for seeing others allowed only a narrow view of what I considered attractive. (Face plant time.)
Now, about that aforementioned smile. In my early 20s, I was employed at a research-based institution in my college town. Several floors above me, worked an older women. Embarrassing to say this now, but I experienced her as manifestly unattractive. To my immature and young eyes, this woman appeared to be what I’d call ugly. (Oh, thank God, we’re only young once.)
Not withstanding my judgments about her appearance, I noticed this woman was always smiling. I mean, always. In the elevator, passing through my part of the building, smiling away. (She loved her work, maybe?) As a walker-every-place-I-went in those days, her home was about a block from my then-apartment. Schlepping past her house, perchance, she was outside, there was generally a smile playing on her face. Bolstered, but not knowing why, I suspect my feet slightly lifted off the ground, floating me on the way to my next destination.
(It took eons before this curious human finally understood the magic of smiles. As a response to smiles, our wise little brains release feel-good hormones. Feel good hormones! In that long-ago psychedelic age, no one knew that getting high could be so cheap.)
As time passed, I rarely noticed this woman’s actual appearance anymore (meaning the physical attributes of which I was so judgmental when first I saw her.) Only her incandescent smile stood out, literally lifting me up.
I no longer recollect what this woman looked like. I just don’t. All I remember is basking in her smile (realizing, later, I was experiencing smile-induced highs.) I never even learned her name!
Ah, but there’s a coda to this long-ago life lesson. Occasionally, I wonder what my impacts are on a needy world. I’m not an Einstein, or a warrior who leads the masses. Nope. Just me and my perceived small actions, like the practice of smiling. (Thanks, teach!)
Good, ‘ol Pete Seeger, the late folksinger, consistently, saves my guilty heart from self-judgment. Are minuscule actions (like smiling) truly impactful in our challenging world?
“Our world will not be saved by massive grand gestures, but rather by millions of small, persistent efforts.”
Go, feel-good hormones! Go, us!