On a recent walk in my neighborhood, I noticed this dragon. Is this not a beautiful dragon? You might not be able to tell in this picture, but the dragon’s eyes are a laser-red. They glow. It’s so cool.
I smiled when I looked at this dragon. How could you not smile? In person, the wings flapped and the eyes looked as if they were following me. So cool.
Then I wondered: I smile about many things during the course of the day. I laugh at myself. I smile when I read some emails, especially about the lengthening of equipment I don’t have. I smile when I read some of the tweets I see in the Twitter stream.
I try not to be the kind of person who goes into the basement once a day and cracks a grin, just to make sure those muscles still work. I don’t mind if I have laugh lines. I have earned them.
How often do you smile, at home and at work? Do you smile enough to get laugh lines? Or, are you limiting your smiles, not smiling a lot?
There are reasons to smile. Smiling can change your brain. Smiling can stimulate your brain. And, we feel better when we smile, even if it’s a fake smile.
Maybe you don’t like this purple dragon. That’s okay. Find something else that makes you smile, and then smile a lot.
That, my gentle readers, is the question this week: What makes you smile?
Easy: dog head out of the window of a moving car. I don’t care what badness may be happening, or how down I might feel, this always makes me smile.
Yes! The dogs look so happy when they do that!
Seeing happy young children in person, in photos and especially videos of their crazy antics.
Hank, you just prompted me to remember some of my childrens’ pictures. I immediately smiled! Thank you.
I smile daily when I see @planetpics photos of amazing stuff in this world on twitter. In fact, I did more than smile (laughed even) when I saw the photo of a seal squished up against an aquarium glass this morning. We need to see the natural world…and appreciate its beauty. That always makes me smile.
Rebecca, from your post, I can see these things in my head. Thank you. (I smiled, too.)