Turn That Frown Upside Down

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth about happiness. All you need to do is turn that frown upside down.

I’ve got a secret. My smile is fake. It’s not real. More often than not, it’s borrowed. I may even have bought it, or perhaps I found it by accident. Sometimes, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, it might even be stolen.

I’ve often turned my frown upside down and turned it into a smile. Not that I’m trying to be fake, but because sometimes wearing a fake smile will turn into a real one. Did you know that? Smiles are highly infectious. If you walk around with a smile on your face for a few minutes, you’ll find it very difficult to continue to be sad, the longer you go. By about 10 minutes, it will become a very genuine, highly communicable smile. You’ll also look like a contender for IT the movie if you’re at a funeral or other event in which it would be out of place, so please exercise extreme discretion on Frown Flipping – hereafter known as FF – not to be confused with the sexual acronym of the same letters.

The Experiment

When my long-term friend Kelly-Anne was unwell, I remember leaving the hospital with obstructed vision and a cement block in place of my heart. Too distracted to safely navigate my way through the intricate tube system, I accidentally bumped into a woman. I apologised immediately and it snapped my attention back to that moment and served as a sharp reminder to focus. But this woman’s reaction was completely out of context with the situation. And let’s be honest here, one look at my face and you could easily have seen that I wasn’t on my way to visit the Queen for a cup of tea, unless I knew in advance that it was going to be poisoned, which would have justified my watery eyes.

“Fuck off,” was this woman’s sympathetic response.

I didn’t retort – largely because I was too flummoxed but also because, I did feel guilty for bumping into her.

An hour later, having spent most ot it trying to think of more positive things, I know that I’d spent 59 minutes thinking about the Fuck off woman. Which meant that nothing had brightened my day. I needed a switch from the dire circumstances my friend was in and I needed a switch of focus. It’s great when you can be there for your friends, but sometimes you need someone to be there for you.

Who says money can’t buy you happiness? It most certainly can. I walked into a store on Tottenham Court Road an hour after Fuck off woman and I met and bought the latest Samsung Android phone.

I nearly skipped home, singing, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah…”.

Whatever it takes, I’ll take a smile over a frown any day.

Fox

(Thanks to VisionofInsanity for letting me ‘borrow’ the image)