Yeah so, today is Friday. Which means it’s so close to the weekend, I can smell it. Mind you, I usually don’t work on Fridays, but today they asked if I could, and I never turn down the chance to earn a little extra money, so I am going in. You all know how miserable my job is, I have explained it before. So I won’t go into it again. However, this past week at work, I have noticed something. And here is my little nugget of wisdom: everything is a little bit better if you smile.

Seriously, everything. At least at work. I am not the only miserable person in my office. A lot of people are. So yesterday, at like 2:30 (which is the most miserable time of the day, when it is halfway between lunch and time to go home), we were all sitting around looking like somebody had just run us all over with a steamroller of misery. It was terrible. I noticed this and decided, since I didn’t actually have any work to do, that I would try something. I smiled. I smiled at everybody in the office. I am pretty sure they were all uncomfortable for a minute, wondering whether I had finally snapped. But after a minute or two, they got it. And somebody else started smiling. And then another. And so on. Pretty soon, the mood of the entire office was a little less Schindler’s List and a little more George of the Jungle. (Not that this story had anything to do with Jews or apes)

This principle works in other places, too. Like if you are in traffic and about to go absolutely crazy, just smile. Or if you are in the grocery store and somebody with a huge cart rushes to get ahead of you in line when you only have 11 things, just smile. It’s ok, nobody will die (hopefully) if you are at the grocery store for five extra minutes. I am serious, this just limits my amount of stress so much sometimes!

Let me take a second to explain to you that I am not a naturally nice person. Which sounds terrible. But I seriously have to fight urges to hit people with my cart in the store (ask Kyle about that story sometime) and scream at people in traffic. Sometimes, I am just in a foul mood and want to be terrible and miserable a mean (very much like a five year old throwing a temper tantrum). However, my foul mood doesn’t not help anybody, certainly myself. And if I hit some old woman moving way to slow with my cart, I will probably have a lawsuit on my hands, and possibly get in some trouble with Jesus, and chances are, it will not make me feel any better. So why not just let it go and smile? Even if it doesn’t catch on like wildfire, as it did in my office, you will look prettier, and Jesus sees. He notices when you really want to scream at the top of your lungs, but instead you control yourself and just put on a happy face. And it’s a good thing. Just remember, you will never be arrested for smiling.

And that’s my thought for the day.