Smile, dammit

[Alrik]

I just feel like being grumpy requires so much more effort than being happy. Maybe I'm weird.

If not on the outside, I'm smiling on the inside. Because I agree with you, being stressed and grumpy is just too much damn work.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I love to laugh but I very rarely smile in a friendly way. It just doesn't feel natural to me. Feels like I'm baring my teeth or something.

 

[RoJoHen]

I love to laugh but I very rarely smile in a friendly way. It just doesn't feel natural to me. Feels like I'm baring my teeth or something.

You don't need to smile with your mouth. You only need to smile with your heart.

 

[Kestra]

I love to laugh but I very rarely smile in a friendly way. It just doesn't feel natural to me. Feels like I'm baring my teeth or something.

Worf?

 

[Mary Ann]

^Worf is not a Merry Man, is he?

Or what about those people who just have plain serious personalities? I know my dad is one. I'm not saying he doesn't have a sense of humor, but having been in the Navy all those decades ago made him a very stern and disciplined man most of the time. He's a no-nonsense guy. He's always in polite terms even when talking to friends and relatives. When we kids were growing up, my dad was quite strict and his words were the law in our household. Then he mellowed down as he got older. Now he's more preoccupied with health or finances, but it doesn't make him a miserable person.

There's a difference between being serious and being grumpy. A serious person can still have a positive outlook on life.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Who can be happy when the universe is waiting to murder us?

 

[Gryffindorian]

^Worf is not a Merry Man, is he?

Or what about those people who just have plain serious personalities? I know my dad is one. I'm not saying he doesn't have a sense of humor, but having been in the Navy all those decades ago made him a very stern and disciplined man most of the time. He's a no-nonsense guy. He's always in polite terms even when talking to friends and relatives. When we kids were growing up, my dad was quite strict and his words were the law in our household. Then he mellowed down as he got older. Now he's more preoccupied with health or finances, but it doesn't make him a miserable person.

There's a difference between being serious and being grumpy. A serious person can still have a positive outlook on life.

Exactly, and that's what I was trying to distinguish from being grumpy or miserable. A serious person can be misread as being gruff or unapproachable when that isn't really the case.

 

[RoJoHen]

Who can be happy when the universe is waiting to murder us?

Not if I do it first!

 

[RJDiogenes]

Who can be happy when the universe is waiting to murder us?

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow an adjacent extra-dimensional brane will cause a phase change that initiates a wave function collapse that re-combines the grand unified field and returns the universe to a quantum singularity where all matter is in a state of undifferentiated potentiality.

 

[Goji]

When I was hired as an assistant English teacher in Japan, during our three day "training session", one of the edicts we were given was to always smile from the moment we arrived at school until the minute we left school. Every day. I thought that they were exaggerating to make a point. I was wrong. Now, I did make it a point to smile and look happy for the kids, but when the board of education representative came to observe me at my school, she gave me sort of an underhanded compliment - I was smiling "most of the time". Translation: not good enough, smile more dammit!

So, call it backlash from when I was literally being forced to smile, but was at least getting paid for it, but anyone who wants me to smile now is going to get the frowniest frown I can manage, just for the sake of principle. In fact, I may throw in some growling for good measure.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I smile whenever there's something to smile about. It's a shame that rarely happens.