I found out a long time ago that my normal, resting face looks mad to other people. It seems I either look mad a great deal of the time or else people mistake intensity for anger. Whatever the case, people are always telling me to “smile!” Some add things like, “Cheer up! It’s not that bad!”
How do they know?
Most of the time it isn’t, but what if someone close to me had just died, I had also just lost all my money, and my kids were rebelling and in jail? “Smile!” Did Jeremiah smile “enough“? If Job didn’t have boils all over him, showing things to be not quite normal, would people have told him, “Smile! It’s not so bad. . .”
My daughter-in-law got quite endearingly indignant when I told her about the different situations in which I was ordered to smile. She said, “You smile a lot!” I do, around my family. One can’t help but laugh when one has a husband like mine -- he is a most original wit.
But on behalf of all those intense or serious people mistaken for grumps, may I beg you, next time you see one, to please not command a smile? Maybe just smile at them instead.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Smile, Job!
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5 comments:
I still remember in kindergarten, my teacher asked me why I looked so sad and I told her matter-of-factly, "That's my normal face!!"
Awww...*hug* But do they still ask you?
People still tell me today...I was coming out of Sam's Club a couple of months ago and the guy who did the receipts that day said, "Smile! It's over!" I wanted to slug him.
I can't think of anyone saying that recently.
...I don't know why someone would think that commanding someone to smile will make that person happy... maybe they have never had the experience and didn't use empathy to figure it out...
Or else they want you to smile no matter what...
probably the intent is to make you happy... i would guess...
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