How Smiling can increase your coping powers quickly
By: Rakesh Bhatia
Tags: Feel Good, Smile, Optimism, Superpowers, Positivity

A massive payoff for very little cost

Photo by Taylor Wright on Unsplash

If I could remember to Smile when things are not going well, can I guarantee that things will start to go well again?

The answer to that will have to be a resounding Yes.

Smiling in the face of adversity is a Super Power.

It’s the absolute, heartfelt, no-doubt-at-all, ability to know that ‘it will be alright’ that is at the core of being cool.

Smiling is the life hack that can put you in that much-needed zone of comfort. From here you can start changing your perspective.

Remembering to smile, in the heat of the moment, is a habit that you can practice. Not the 10,000 hours gain-mastery kind of practice. A few serious attempts can put you in that place where good results start to show.

Smile, and be grateful for another opportunity to practice smiling. Practice this at every stage, at every moment. Make it an ever ongoing, relentless pursuit of habit making. No exceptions.

Tall order? It’s possible to see it as a tall order. But then again, superpowers are not meant for everyday garden-variety situations. It does take a higher-level effort to achieve higher-level results. The payoff is higher when using superpowers.

There may be overwhelming evidence that things are not looking good. All your reasoning and ‘logic’ is telling you this is not a solvable situation. You can’t see how this can fix itself.

Bring in the super power now. Remember to smile. Things start to resolve. Some unseen force will put things in motion that will set the course towards a great resolution. You still need to walk down that path. If you don’t ‘mess things up on your own’ from hereon, you should have a quick and safe arrival home.

Smiling in the face of adversity cleans the path ahead of you. Your path is lit up and clear enough to take the first step. Then the next first step. You are now on your way.

You focus on smiling. That’s your role. That’s your task. That’s your contribution. A small effort can provide big results if you use the right lever. Smiling is the effort. The Universe will provide the lever.

It could be hard to believe in this phenomenon. We are skeptical, by definition. We need provable, demonstrable results before we start to believe.

Finding faults requires effort too. An effort that we could well spend on accepting it, believing it, and using it. Why then do we insist on misdirecting our efforts?

Do I always get 100% results? We will need to define what is 100%. Do I get satisfactory results 100% of the time? The genuine answer is Yes.

I get out of the funk faster, with lesser ill feelings, lesser bad taste in the mouth, and with more optimism. I have tested this on a large number of occasions. In fact, I use it all the time. It has never let me down yet.

Is there a ‘scientific’ basis for accepting that Smiling in the face of adversity is a good move? Are there any credible, peer-reviewed studies to support this statement?

There must be. There are a xillion studies out there to prove or disprove every possible hypothesis you could come up with. Would you rather wait for studies to prove a theory with double-blind experiments, with long-term follow-ups over a decade?

Or would it be more appropriate to short circuit the entire procedure, test it on yourself, and get the results in double-quick time?

I would go for the second option. Considering there is little or no possibility of adverse side effects. Or a downside.

When you think about it, how bad can Smiling be for you?