The 30-Day Smiling Experiment

One day, while driving home from work I thought to myself "I really love going to work now. Why?" And the conclusion I reached was that one of my coworker's persistent smiles were making my entire office an enjoyable place to be. In fact, this smiling coworker's supervisor even commented on his "contagious smile" when she first mentioned hiring him. Also, as I recalled my favorite group of students I ever taught (I teach at a community college), this group had one particular student that smiled continuously. "Smiles are the key" I thought. And then I considered the idea: "Why not trying to smile as much as possible myself?" So at that point I decided to try a 30-day Smile Experiment where I would smile as much at possible and keep a journal (blog) of the results. At the time of this writing, I am on Day 17. The results of my experiment were eye-opening indeed! Not only did I get a very positive reaction from the majority of store clerks, family members, coworkers, and friends, the whole experiment revealed a lot about myself. One of the bigger revelations was that my glum and negative behavior in the past was causing people to avoid me. That avoidance created resentment on my part. That resentment resulted in more glum and negative behavior. It was a vicious circle. I am not a natural smiler - I was raised in an environment where smiles were rare and negativity ruled. And I took on those traits as well to some extent. You don't quickly unlearn such behavior. But you can change that behavior, if you try and persist. Commitment to this experiment has given me the motivation to persist through the 30th day. And more importantly, the positive results have given me a very good reason to continue smiling even after the experiment is finished. My wife loves the new me, and suddenly I find myself not being excluded in social circles! I will keep smiling!