A smile is an amazingly powerful thing, a device that has such sway over us. It can calm our nerves during a job interview. It can cheer up our down-in-the-mouth blues. It can cause us to fall head-over hills in love. It better helps us trust people who serve, govern, protect, instruct, and employ us. And you can just imagine that many or our famous vocal and film stars became stars because of a great smile. It simply has high selling potential. It simply endears us to people.
The power of the smile even is a primary concept in the Jewish mystical practice of Kabbalah. The concept is called "raising sparks." Rabbi David Cooper, author of the fascinating book God is a Verb, describes raising sparks as accomplishing "deeds of lovingkindess," through "being in harmony with the universe," and gaining "higher awareness." All of these acts, as you have probably ascertained, attempt to change the focus out and away from the individual and onto others. In other words, becoming more selfless and more aware of people around you.
In regards to smiling, smiling is considered one of the most basic tools one can use to raise sparks. It’s taught that if you smile at someone while walking down the street, especially someone who might need to see your magnetic and contagious smile, then they may continue smiling and sharing that smile while looking at others. That one smile reverberates out like a rock dropped onto a quiet lake. That positive wake isn’t stopped until it meets an opposing wake or the shore. The manufacturers of Breck Shampoo in the 70's and 80's marketed their product using a similar concept–you will use the shampoo; then you will tell their friends and they will tell their friends, "and so on and so on and so on." The key to the success of this tv ad was in multiplying individual cells as friends told their friends about the product. What started out as a single picture, became 2, then 4, 8, 16, etc until the whole screen was composed of individual pictures of women sold on the product. This is concept behind the power of the smile.
Regarding the power of the smile, William Shakespeare once wrote:"A smile cures the wounding of a frown."
He also knew that not all smiles were sincere, as he depicted in his character Gloucester, who reveals in an aside:
Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
(3 Henry VI, III, ii)
Hamlet, also, learns a cruel lesson about deception after the terrifying visit of his father’s ghost. Hamlet observes: "That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain...."
On this last note, I’d like to introduce you to a smiling quiz that came across my desk yesterday. The object is to view twenty video recorded smiles and mark whether each smile is genuine or fake. Once you finish the test, the results will explain to you how you can tell when a person is smiling for real. The quiz is part of research by Professor Paul Ekman, a psychologist at the University of California. Take the quiz here.
Enjoy!
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