Ways to contentment

‘It’s not that you stop smiling as you grow old. The real thing is you grow old because you stop smiling.’

When I received the above mentioned statement as a text message from one of my very close friends I could immediately sense my heart pumping blood to my wisdom tooth with additional intensity thus setting my brain machinery whirring into action. I could already foresee that friend of mine marching ahead into a lawsuit slammed onto his face by the manufacturers of various antidotes for aging (read anti-aging creams). How could he even think of offering such simple a solution as a ‘smile’ for a malady they had been blowing their bugle against????

However, I soon realised my mistake. (Come on, I have reason for that…..got my wisdom tooth extracted years ago. That accounts for all the eccentricity in my …umm…behaviour). Well, it so turned out that I became aware of the supreme intelligence applied in by the manufacturers of these antidotes. They were well aware of the fact that in today’s world the thing called ‘smile’ though the cheapest but is still the most rarely available commodity. Blame it on the ‘rat – race’ which we in more sophisticated terms call ‘competition’ or the present agony of the ‘global recession’- life and people somehow seem to have lost the zing thing.

Trust me, I am not a philanthropist preaching you the essentials of flashing a smile onto every passer – by, nor have I been bribed by any of those laughter clubs for canvassing their services. I’m simply trying to put forth my observations…….a general opinion about the present scenario. As a counsellor, I often come across cases where I find people suffering from gross insecurities which owe their roots to the fact that people are unable to digest the idea of somebody else around them being happy! They are not worried about the plenitude in which they are thriving but the hand to mouth existence of their neighbour does spark off their interest.

Another thing which I have noticed is that somehow we seem to have lost the capacity to laugh at our own self. May be our egos seem to possess the better of us here. We may laugh at the antics of a comedian in a movie or at a stupid prank played on somebody around, but when it comes to our own self, our serpentile ego at once raises its hood ready to take a strike. We may call it work pressure or anything else, but the truth remains as what I say. I do not advocate the idea of behaving like a buffoon in this case making a complete fool of ourselves in the process, but may be to a certain extent we can tolerate some amount of fun made at our expense.

Smile, I do understand in today’s world is difficult to attain but may be we don’t realise the innumerable horsepower our smile rises up to. That single smile of ours is capable of lighting up the lives of those hundreds around us who survive on nothing but our smiles. Those hundred include your parents, your near and dear ones who eagerly wait for you the whole day long just to see you entering the house with a smile. Your long drawn visage actually puts down their spirits too. And surely, for them this much we can certainly do. As J.K. Rowling puts it, “we must do something for the greater good ”, so for the greater good learn the art of smiling…….enjoy the miniscule pleasures offered by life……for after years when you will look back, you would actually laud yourself for having led a life with contentment.

As far as the adage ‘physician heal thyself’ goes I would just like to put in that in my case I’m trying to master the technique myself, but then my profession of being a ‘preacher’ does get onto my nerves quite often and the result is this write up. But then there is no harm practising what I say. Isn’t it?

P.S. Well, the very same person who sent me the initial text message sent me the following too:


'I hated people pulling my cheeks at every wedding I attended saying “you are going to be the next one”. They stopped doing it when I started doing the same with them at the funerals I attended'. LOL!!!!!!
So, donate a smile……….live longer.