SMILE

All of us hope to look great or have a great appearance. We purchase the beautiful clothing or a best-selling perfume to wear, we have a haircut at an expensive hair salon or we make up our face very carefully or spend ten minutes to decide which accessories to put on…everything we do in our daily life has one common goal : to have a more charming appearance or look prettier.

But do you know what is one of the most beautiful accessories for everybody?

No matter whether you are young or old, male or female, tall or short, nice looking or plain, everybody needs it to make us look younger and nicer. It is not expensive, not hard to obtain, not difficult to wear. In fact, everyone has one but sometimes we just forget to wear it.

What is it? It’s a S-M-I-L-E.

One day John said: “Mom, why don’t you smile at me sometimes? Why are you smiling to your friends but not me today?” At that time, I realized that sometimes I was impatient with him and I forgot to smile .I was unhappy with him when he did not practice piano as the teacher required or sometimes he kept dragging homework on and on and he worked on it in the last minute. Or sometimes he did not finish his lunch or drink up the bottled water at school, or sometimes he was too naughty and he irritated me until I was going crazy. I closed off my smile at all the above occasions. Instead, I wore a serious-looking expression or a frown.

So I sometimes forgot my smile at home!

One rainy and windy Sunday morning, I took John to church. After kids were sent to Sunday school in the church, one young man appeared on the stage. He was in a clean white shirt, tall and slim, but what I felt very special about him was his wonderful big smile. His smile lighted the whole room including me!

At that time, I definitely felt the sunshine ,warmth and cheerfulness he brought to the room and to everybody by his sincere smile. We audience were engaged with him ,led by him into the bible stories. I started to realize how powerful a smile could be. The rainy day was not grey at all; I felt a small sunshine in my heart.

After the service, I went to the gym to have a cup of tea as usual as well as waiting for John to come back from the Sunday school. When standing there waiting for John, I was thinking about the smile. So I smiled.

When John appeared in front of me, he looked at me with a bit of surprise. And then he looked at me again to make sure that I was all right. After a while, he walked to me and hugged me : “Mom, you are smiling. Are you happy with me today?”

At that moment, I felt guilty that I forgot to smile to John sometimes in the past. I kept smiling and I said: “Yes, you are a very good boy. Today and always. I love you, son. ” My son smiled back and he said :”I love you, too. You are the best mom in the world.”

Until then, I found that not only does a smile make people feel good and look nicer, but also a smile brings positive thinking to people too. Try this, when you smile and you process this in your head: “what a bad luck day”. You keep smiling, mentally we keep saying that we are having a sucky day today…but in a moment, you will feel that the day is not that bad because you are smiling at life. The unhappiness is like a trivial thing that we can ignore easily. That is the charming part of a smile.

I am very lucky to have a great mentor, she has been my mentor since three years ago. When we talk on the phone every week, the conversations are always great and pleasant. She is a very nice ,positive lady who always smiles. On the phone, I can always feel her smile although I cannot see her face. When she smiles, I always smile back. I know a smile is infectious. A smile can be passed on from one to another. When I have felt down and sad a few times in my life, my mentor sent me a message and cheered me up :”Keep smiling…” This wakes me up immediately when I realize that I shall smile at life no matter what happens to me. Then one day or everyday , life will smile back at me.

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