Happiness...everybody wants it, right? Isn't it somewhere in the founding documents of my own country somewhere? Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is in there somewhere (I just looked it up, it is in the Declaration of Independence). Several related thoughts have been rolling around in my head lately, and, as usual, I've found the easiest way to get them out of my mind is to write about them here.
I guess this began with a comment from a certain someone encouraging me to smile. While it seems like a natural thing to do, forcing a smile somehow doesn't feel like the right idea. Rather, I have thought, I should find something that makes me smile. I spend a lot of time reading--mostly mysteries--and from time to time get to wondering whether all that murder and mayhem doesn't make a person naturally gloomy. I mean, even if the good guys win in the end, there is usually lots of evil in between. Thinking along those lines, a few months ago I looked for some books that would make me laugh out loud. It took a while (and a few unsuccessful attempts), but I finally got my hand on one and read it. Thinking more work by that author might have just the same impact, I bought several more--it didn't work. The others were just not that funny. At that point I probably frowned very naturally and resumed the path of slogging through murder and mayhem.
Consequently, the smiles don't seem to show up as regularly as they should (at least in the eyes of that certain person). It turns out behavioral science tells us, through experiments conducted on innocent persons like you and me, that smiling produces higher levels of endorphins and a few other positive things like stress relief. The neuroscientists also tell us that forcing a smile has the same effect, and can even improve your mood. It certainly is more likely to attract friends than drive people away, as frowns tend to do. So I'm back to forcing a smile. But it just never feels quite right to me. The forced smile appears to me to resemble the expression you will often see in your dog when he or she opens the mouth, shows its teeth and sticks out its tongue. They look almost as if they are smiling. Add the factor of a wagging tail and almost everyone would conclude the dog is smiling and happy. Not having access to the inside of a dog's brain (except in certain movies, etc., which are imagined versions of the dog's thoughts).
There's a lot more to this than meets the eye. Seeing all this I'm reminded of a book I have entitled "Are You As Happy As Your Dog?" It listed a series of actions dogs take (or seem to) that enables them to avoid many of the things that diminish our happiness (e.g., Dogs seem to "Get Over It," holding no grudges. If you happen to accidentally step on the dogs foot, it will yelp in pain and run away. A few minutes later the dog is back, smiling and wagging its tail. It gets over it.
There were a lot of others, but I don't recall them. I'll catch up with you later. I'm going to look for that book.
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