Take a look around you. What is it that you see? Perhaps I don’t yet know you and I don’t know your circumstances though what I do know is that for each of us the answer will be different. Maybe you are living in a mansion or maybe you were living in an airstream trailer. Maybe you are in the desert or Paris or maybe you live on the beach. For each person it will be a different and unique experience. Really look around you right now and see all the things in your immediate area and realize that this experience will also be different for everybody. Do you have a reason to smile?
Even though I may not know you, the one thing I do know is that when each of us looks at the news on television or reads the newspaper the one commonality is all of the negativity in these various forms of media. it creates a world where everything and everyone often seems to be against you and the entire weight of the world rests on your shoulders.
The other thing I know about you, and to paraphrase my Internet Pal Rachel Rofe, is that if you are reading this you have access to the Internet and free will and a thirst for knowledge which to me means you have the ability to change your world.
So the challenge is- can we escape all this negativity? I really don’t think we can. Unless you just never turn on the news or never open a newspaper it will always be around us. In fact even advertising is full of negativity. The ads say that in order to be happy we have to drive that fast car or have a hot girlfriend or boyfriend. I do not think that is true. We don’t need all that stuff to make us happy. We just need certain mindset.
I do believe we can be happy without all those fancy things. I think if you just take a minute and look around, you can find things that make you smile in anything around you. Take a look around your environment again. What do you see you there? Does that they make you smile? Does it bring back fond memories? Do you see something that you are planning and looking forward to? Maybe you will even form a little smile.
Did you see something that made you smile? What about those flowers over there? Or that mother holding her new baby? Surely you see the beauty in that? Or what about that dog over there chasing the butterfly? What? You’re stuck in your 12th floor office cubicle? Then just close your eyes and imagine a dog chasing a butterfly. There you go. Surely that made you smile right?
Maybe it is some activity you did recently? Maybe that concert you went to or that hypnosis show you went to on your wild trip to Vegas or that one scene from your favorite James Bond movie or…
Me? How do I change my mindset to avoid the negativity? I think about something, anything that can make me smile. But how do I do it when everything is so dark? There is beauty in everything around you. Don’t yet believe me? Try this for a second. Just stop and take a look around you. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Don’t worry, no one will think you look silly. Beside, even if they do, who reallycares? Maybe you will ever help them crack a smile. And would that be so bad really?
I know there is something out there that makes you smile. As hard as it sometimes is, I try to see the beauty in everything. Even if I was in the middle of a desert or the ocean with nothing around, there is still the warmth of the sand or the shimmer of the sun off the water that can make you smile. Or you can always go inside yourself and think about things in the past that made you smile.
The other day here in Las Vegas it had just finished raining. (Yes it actually does rain in Las Vegas in the desert.) And on this particular day I looked up and I saw a rainbow and then I noticed that it was actually a double rainbow. Now I ask you this, who cannot smile at the site of a double rainbow? And then all the other things the rain had brought with it as well. The smell of the rain or the flowers that had been blooming. There were now puddles in the street that could be jumped in so that a big splash would come out on either side. How can you not smile about that?
One recent day, Paul Shortino the former lead singer of Quiet Riot and now starring in the hit Las Vegas show Raiding The Rock Vault, said to me, “When you are stuck in traffic, don’t be annoyed at the traffic but be grateful that you actually have a car.” My point exactly. Even when the situation does not look too joyful around you you can always find something in that to make you smile and like Carl Spackler from Caddyshack said, “So I got that going for me…which is nice.”
So what is 1KSmiles all about?
I started www.1KSmiles.com to help you see the positive in life so that with each blog post I can help trigger a memory. A memory of something that makes you smile. It might be that time you saw a dog shaking off water. Or maybe it was the time you went on your very first date with your spouse to a baseball game or watching a baby eat something new for the first time and making that sour baby face. Who knows what it is that makes you smile but like Paul said all you have to do is spin it around and find the positive in anything.
1KSmiles will offer you 1,000 things that make me smile. It could be anything from the sound of a sonic boom to that gentle blue part of a flame. Nothing is off limits. It just has to makes me smile.
More important, I hope it makes you smile as well. Which is where you come in… 1KSmiles was created one day sitting around the pool thinking about what could help make each day just a little brighter as well as what would bring a smile to the reader’s face. To your face. And with that the 1KSmiles movement was created. And that made me smile.
How can you help or contribute?
Visit the 1KSmiles Facebook page and add 1KSmiles to your daily reading schedule using Feedly or similar and enjoy your daily dose of smiles.
Oh yeah, and …
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