That is My Smile – DARN IT!

I discovered over the last few days that I have been doing quite a bit of self-examination (Okay – all my friends reaching for the comment button, get your minds out of the gutter). This is not a bad thing for I am not trying to tear myself apart, just gain a better understanding of who I am. I hope that by having a better insight, I will be able to let some things go and change other things. Self-reflection can be good for the soul as long as you don’t stay there too long without doing something about what you discover. I have been struggling with two different posts, and in the end, this one won for tonight. Tomorrow’s post is already planned.

For the last two weeks, I have attempted to practice what I preach. I think that the one thing I stress to others more than anything else is that our emotions are our own. I used to talk with my students about this, and how they chose to let others control how they felt. I have written about it in the past and received a number of comments about how people agree. Yet, how easy is it to preach about something and then you don’t follow your own advice. Two weeks ago, I decided to change that for myself.

Two weeks and a day ago, I had a really crappy day. The more I tried to make things work; the more things went the wrong way. My frustration level had reached a new height. Every phone call made things worse, and I shut my door to keep people out. In the end, I accepted that this was okay because we all have bad days. If we didn’t have the bad days, we would never know what would be a good day. Later that evening, I thought back and realized that throughout the day, I was allowing others to steal what could have been a good or great day. I reacted emotionally to their thoughts and comments. I failed at my own advice.

The next day, I posted on Facebook that I was choosing to make it a good day. I succeeded. I posted that I was going for 2 out of 2 then 3 out of 3. I had to choose all day long not to allow others to bring me down. I found it interesting that my friends were liking my posts. Some put up words of encouragement. I felt as if I had a team behind me rooting me on to have good days. Tomorrow I will make that choice again. This will make day 15.

I do not want people to think that it as simple as saying, “I choose to be happy.” If it was that simple the film Inside Out would not have been necessary. There have been days that I had to walk away from things for a little. Times that I could not, I used visuals to remind me why I would not let others control me – mostly a picture of my wife and daughter. There are days I started to fail, but caught myself. In the worst case, a colleague, at just the right time, asked how my happiness was doing. All of these came together to keep me on track. I was not happy 100% of the time. I ran the gamut of emotions but came back, by choice, to happy. So why write about this? It is my smile or lack of one.

People knew what I was doing because for some odd reason, I post these things. Maybe I do it for support, maybe I do it so I can prove a point, maybe I do it …..I don’t know why I do it. However, I did get stopped a few times asking if I was happy. When I informed the person I was, I would receive a response of, “Oh. Okay. I wondered because you weren’t smiling.”

I wanted to reply with, “This is my smile, darn it.” I just don’t walk around with a smile on my face 24 hours a day. I know people who do and struggle between envy that they can and……well wanting to smack them and tell them that nobody can smile that much. I just don’t have one of those smiles.

I am not sure what happened to my smile. When I see pictures of me from school, I see smiles galore. Somewhere along the way, I stopped. I know I can still do it. We just spent a day at a Renaissance Faire. All day long, I was smiling – my face hurt when we came home. Unless something is calling for a smile right then and there, I have a stoic face. This can make being happy difficult at least where others are concerned.

Even our daughter has brought my lack of happy expression up on more than one occasion. She has come into the room or sat opposite me and asked if I was happy. When I responded I was, she would also question it again. She tells me that I look sad. I try to look happier, but it doesn’t work. Once at work, my boss and another mentioned how I didn’t look happy. I walked around the rest of the day with a big smile on my face. Then they told me that I looked creepy. I guess there is just no pleasing some people.

I know that I am not alone with this issue. One of my best friends in the Air Force also had this issue. People often thought that he was constantly grumpy. Ed had to be one of the nicest people but unless somebody took the chance to get to know him, they missed out. People assume they understand people like us and that we are not happy. My own brother told me that I look like I have a stick up my *$s. Yet this was never the case, inside we are happy.

So this brings me back to the original topic. I have worked in choosing to be happy. Yet, because I don’t walk around all bright and cheery on the outside it is assumed that I have not succeeded. While I am still working on controlling my choices, the last two weeks have proven other things to me. You can’t make choices based on how other people are going to react to you. I should not choose to be happy so that others know how I am feeling. I need to choose so that I know how I feel. I have to stop worrying about others’ opinions of me and live my life.

So now, tomorrow, I will make two choices. I choose to not allow others to control my emotions, and I choose to not worry about whether people know if I am happy or not.

This is the first of two parts where I am learning about me and what changes need to happen.

Thank you for meandering with me today, and I hope you will walk with me tomorrow.