If you want to be happy, SMILE... even if you have wonky teeth!

A few years ago, I made up a cute poster and post titled, "If you want to be happy, then Smile."  I thought about this just today and revisited that poster, and I wanted to add a little dialogue to it.

There are a lot of reasons why people don't smile. My own husband, as he aged, didn't want his teeth to show, because they had begun cracking and chipping, and he didn't like to show them.  When he'd smile, it would look like a half hearted effort to smile, with a closed mouth. I missed his smile, and I realized he was hiding his teeth.  I could commiserate with him because all while I was growing up, especially during Junior High and High School, I would do my best to smile and hide my very crooked teeth.

I had a very wonky tooth, and it was right in the middle of my mouth.  My parents were of humble means and couldn't provide braces on my teeth for me, so I did all I could to not show them.  I remember in my older years in grade school, a friend and neighbor of mine, got braces on her teeth.  Then another got braces on her teeth, yet I needed them more than both of them put together, and never got them.  I remember at times pretending I had braces, by twisting a wire paper clip into the arch shape of braces, and putting it in my mouth, pretending I had braces.  This is how badly I wanted and needed them.

When I got into Junior High, I was pretty shy, but eventually I got over that shyness, and nobody seemed to be focused on my crooked teeth but me.  Then High School came, and I tried out for Cheerleader and made it, and nobody said a word to me about my crooked and wonky tooth.  I still figured out a way to smile, without my teeth showing to the point that my crooked tooth wasn't noticeable.  I smiled that way in all my class photos, and all was well until my mother entered me into the Miss Teenage Utah Pageant. I just knew that I would be judged negatively for my crooked teeth, so I spent hours and hours practicing how to smile, looking head on, turning my head to the side and worked hard at disguising the fact that I had a very wonky tooth.  All went well the
days of the pageant, until about 10 minutes before I was to go into my judges interview.  I was ready, until one girl came up to me and asked me why I never got braces.  She said that she got them when she was younger, and it really helped and her teeth were much more wonky than mine.  She went on and on, totally destroying the confidence and good energy I had built up, about being in front of the judges, and ran into the bathroom to have a good cry.  It only took her few thoughtless words to destroy my confidence.   I knew I should have had braces and would have had so much more confidence in myself, if I felt my smile looked better.

I guess fate played a dirty trick on the girl who made me cry, because she didn't even place in the Miss Teenage Utah contest, but I did.  I won first runner up to Miss Teenage Utah, and First runner up in the Speech contest... "What's right with America".  You should have seen my dad's face when it was only myself and the queen, standing up in front of the spectators and supporters.  He said he didn't know how in the world he and Mom would make it to the Miss Teenager USA in Georgia, if I had won. I came home with a trophy almost as tall as myself and I have to say that this gave me a confidence boost. I did enter a couple other contests, and consistently won 1st runner up.

Two of the contests, I was given a copy of the Judging sheets, and I will never forget what I read from one of the Judges.  He said, "If she had straight teeth, she would have been queen." Another contest, the comments were..."Teeth need straightening, but only two more votes would have made her queen.  I knew it was true, but I had no control of getting my wonky teeth fixed.  My hopes were that one day, I would get my teeth fixed, and would live happily ever after.

Some years later, I met and married the man of my dreams, my Prince Charming, and my knight in shinning armor.  A few years later, he told me that I should make an appointment with the orthodontist for braces for my teeth.  You'd think I had won the lottery, and he knew how much it meant to me to get my teeth fixed, even though he loved me in spite of them.  I got braces, as a married woman, when I had several children.  I had to wear them for about 5 years, but I wore them proudly, as a badge of honor and was so happy when it was finally time to take them off.

One of the first things I realized was that I could smile a full smile, and not have to cover up my teeth.  I also realized that it was a big sacrifice for my husband to make so I could rebuild my own self esteem.  I also realized that beauty is only skin deep, and instead of focusing on what got me to win 3 contests, my inner beauty was what was being judged and not my teeth.

Now to wrap this up.... and back to the beginning of my story, my dear husband had much more issues with his worn out teeth.  He'd joke and say his teeth were horse teeth, and through he joked, I knew he was disguising how he really felt, because I had been there, and done that.  It was time, and he needed to smile a big smile and feel good about himself too.  We made an appointment  and to make a longer story shorter, he got 12 of this teeth crowned, and they look great.  He feels so much better about himself too, and I have noticed a definite change in him.  She smiles a whole lot more.

It wasn't just about teeth in both of these stories.  Both of us overlooked the imperfections in each other and loved each other, no matter how wonky or worn our teeth were.  This made our love grow even stronger, because we each put a smile on the others face, one that wasn't disguised, but a big toothy smile. 

If you want to be happy, then spend time with your family

It is a proven fact, if you really want to be happy, then take time, and spend it with your family.  It is a simple truth.  Building those relationships within the bonds of your family can make it or break family relationships and bonds. So I would like to suggest 10 things you can do to with your family, that builds unity, love and respect.

1.  Have dinner together, around the table.

2.  Have a chat!

3.  Have family council.

4.  Read together.

5.  Hug each other, every single day!

6.   Forgive each other daily, then forget about 

      what you forgave.

7.   Take time to listen, without interrupting.

8.   Laugh and cry together. 

9.   Be thankful and use your words of gratitude.

10.  Be kind. 

I could go on and share more of my thoughts, but the next step would be for you to think about why each of these ten things were listed.  What difference would they make in a family? What needs do they fulfill in each family member?  Then think about taking away each of these things, and how would it affect your family relationships?

If you want to be happy, then spend time with your family, building the relationships that will endure the test of time, trials, hurts, heartaches, pain and grief.  Build character in your children by teaching them values through your own example as parents.  Love, love, love your children, they simply grow up way too fast, and when their grown, they'll come back with their own little kiddies, to love you and do all those things you did for them.  One big happy family.... and it's never too late to start.

Don't let a little rain dampen your spirits!

How many times have you let things stand in the way of your happiness.  Sometimes they are as small , little hurts like cross words, or a harsh look. Does this remind you of you?  If you want to be happy, you must rid yourself of those raindrops sogging you down, in order see the beautiful rainbows.  So many people that we all know, have harbored and actually fed hurt feelings, preventing them from being happy.  They brood, and relish in their own hurt so long that it becomes what defines them, and little do they know how much they miss out on.   

A word from the wise....Everyone has raindrops that fall and dampen their spirits from time to time, and that is normal, but if you don't develop the ability to let them go, you will never be able to enjoy this beautiful life... or see all the lovely rainbows that appear right before your eyes.

Go ahead,  let  go and and be happy!  I dare you!

IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY, THEN FORGIVE!

A young woman sat down with me for lunch and we had a very long chat.  I didn’t know her as well as I should have, but after our chat, I knew everything that I needed to know.  She always smiled, laughed and I couldn’t figure out how she could be so happy in life when she had every reason to be miserable.  Her life was filled with one horrible experience after the other.  On all accounts, most people would think her life tragic.  I wanted to cry for her, and did as she told me the true stories that I don’t think I could have lived through myself.  When I asked her how she could be so happy and optimistic after living through one tragedy after the other, she told me that it simply wasn’t worth the hurt  and the energy to hold on to bad memories. 

 At a very young age, this young woman learned to forgive.  She told me that she doesn’t wait, stew, brood, and be miserable about the constant barrage and continuous flow of bad events that never seem find her at every turn, because she is determined to be happy in spite of them.  She believes that these events won’t ever cease, explaining about the little grey cloud that follows her wherever she goes.  She laughs and says she was born with it and like her shadow, will never stop following her.   She found that by forgiving others of their offenses, is the umbrella (metaphorically speaking) that prevents the rain from keeping her soggy wet. She knows it’s just a matter of time before she’ll get dumped on again, but understands that nobody is immune and it is just a matter of how we determine we will meet the challenges of life.  Forgiving others is what keeps her happy.

After this conversation, I took a very long look at myself and realized that I had been holding on to things way too long.  I realized that holding on to the bad memories and experiences in my own life, and never letting go was like a second nature to me, you know, kind of like a mole on your neck that you didn’t ever dare to have removed.  That evening, I took a long look into my 3 x zoom mirror and noticed how that mole had grown over the years.  It used to be so small that I just ignored it, but over the years it had grown into what looked more like a melanoma, a humongous protuberance that had to be removed.  I knew I needed to set an appointment with the Dermatologist to take care of it once and for all.

What a refreshing feeling it is to get rid of old baggage, and to be able to smile without regrets; and I had to learn it from someone half my age.  I wonder for you who are reading this story,  just how long you have held on to your excess baggage and how much longer will it take for you to be able to forgive, move on and be happy?  Lighten your load, forgive others, and be happy once more.

 

Please enjoy this little clipable printable to clip and post wherever you need to see it to remind yourself of your new attitude of forgiveness.

Be happy and you will make others happy too!

Free Printable Message reminder for yourself or others.  To print click on the image to enlarge, then save it to your computer.  Put it somewhere you will look at every day as a little reminder that happiness is contagious, and if you will BEE happy, you will make others happy too!

Accentuate the POSITIVE, eliminate the NEGATIVE

Since I was a child, my mother use to sing this song to her children.  We all recognized it, had it memorized, and understood exactly what she meant when she started to sing it.  I thought I would pass my mothers secret to stop murmuring and try to be happy.
 

Here are the lyrics:

 

"You've got to accentuate the positive,

Eliminate the negative,

Latch on to the affirmative,

And don't mess with Mr. in-between!"

Never wear a sheepish Smile PRINTABLE

I just made a little printable for you to print off and enjoy.  This is a pass along, to promote smiling, and being happy!  Give it to someone who needs it or to someone you want to make smile.  Just enjoy!!!  By the way, the poem is by me, the illustrious writer and author of this blog.  Made you smile!

Make Someone Happy

This morning, I woke up singing this wonderful old song, "Make someone happy."  I found the video clip on You tube and wanted to share with you.  Listen to the words, as they make sense, that is if you want to be happy!

 



Make Someone Happy by Durante, Jimmy

Make someone happy,
Make just one someone happy;
Make just one heart the heart you sing to.
One smile that cheers you,
One face that lights when it nears you,
One girl you're ev'rything to.

Fame if you win it,
Comes and goes in a minute.
Where's the real stuff in life to cling to?
Love is the answer,
Someone to love is the answer.
Once you've found her, build your world around her.

Make someone happy,
Make just one someone happy,
And you will be happy, too.



A SIMPLE PLATE OF COOKIES

Some years my family moved from our hometown, friends and family, to a new home in a new state and town.  There is always a certain amount of fearfulness about fitting in, making friends, and being accepted, and these thoughts were in all of our heads.  Even our children were apprehensive about this move, and hated to leave behind their friends, to start over again in this new neighborhood.  I have learned from past experience that not everyone will come running to your front door to meet you, if you are a new move in, but I knew that we could either sit back and hope it will happen or we could be proactive to make it happen.  We took the proactive approach and created a plan to meet our neighbors.

People love cookies, and I know that unless you are severely diabetic, nobody will refuse the offer of a freshly baked cookie.  I gathered up my children, and together we added the ingredients to make our best recipe of chocolate chip cookies.  After they were baked and cooled, we divided them up on several paper plates, making sure that we left one for our own family.  Then we made a plan about who should be the lucky recipients of our cookies.  This would be our way of meeting them, and hopefully putting a smile on their face in the process.  We were excited and everyone eagerly participated.

We selected 4 different families in our neighborhood to deliver these cookies to.  The very first family we picked lived directly across the street from us.  When we had moved in, and before we had our phone, we needed to make a phone call, and asked if we could make a call from their home.  They were kind enough to let us in, and so we thought that we would return the favor. 

With my children's faces wiped off, and hair combed, we took our cookies and walked across the street to present one to this family.  We knocked on the door and the mother opened the door.  She had quite a surprised and perplexed look on her face.  Maybe me any all my children were a little bit overwhelming, so I quickly said, "We wanted to thank you for the use of your phone a couple days ago, so we baked you some cookies."  My kids were all smiling and excited about sharing but somehow she didn't seem as happy to receive them as we were to give. 

She then said, "Why are you giving me a plate of cookies?"

I said, "Because we wanted to say thank-you."

She then said, "Who does this?  Why the cookies?"

My kids began to squirm around and became a bit uncomfortable, as our best efforts seemed to be questioned like we had put poison in the cookies or maybe we were trying to sell them or something.

The woman's mouth was pretty much open, with jaw dropped and her kids had gathered around her at peering through the doorway at us.  I wanted to cut the uneasiness a bit, so I then said,
"We live across the street and wanted to meet you.  This is our way of meeting you."

Once again, the woman said, "But why the cookies?"

I brushed it off and began to name the names and ages of my children and then said that we hoped that we could become good friends one day.  My kids were only too anxious to leave their uncomfortable presence, until finally she said, "Well thank you!" (That thank-you seemed to have a question mark at the end of it.)

She went on to say, "Nobody has ever brought them a plate of cookies or anything, and that she was so surprised that she didn't know what to do or what to say."

I said, "that's ok," and my daughter continued... "Maybe you will get more use to it if we keep bringing you cookies again."  At that our neighbor smiled and seemed to warm up and her kids were pulling on the plate of cookies, to get a better look at them. 

We said a quick good-by and walked back across the street.  I gathered my kids around in our family room,  and the conversation when something like this....."Who doesn't like cookies?" "Wow that was uncomfortable." 

I asked the kids how they felt about giving the cookies away, and each of them said that it made them happy, even though they weren't received in the way that they had hoped.

Time went by and so did plates of cookies, casseroles, and many other goodies.  We became friends with this neighbor, and we all knew that happiness does come into our heart when we give something away, even as simple as cookies. 

Kathleen Gauger

HOW CAN YOU BE HAPPY?

Throughout my lifetime I have had opportunity to enjoy and share a quote that is probably my most favorite.  It contains the secret of what it takes to be happy.  Let me share with you...

 "There is a destiny that makes us brothers, none goes his way alone.  All that we send into the lives of others, comes back into our own."  Edwin Markham

I suppose I could stop here and leave it up to you to connect the dots and figure it out, but since this has been a livelong activity of mine, I will explain.  If we want to be happy, I mean truly happy, then we need to extend ourselves to others and by doing so, happiness and joy come back to us ten fold.  To further explain, I would like to share a true story:

Many years ago, in fact, about 20 years to be exact, my family lived in Nevada.  We moved there to further my husbands career.  While living there we made lots of friends, but one friend in particular at one point in her life, became withdrawn, somber and depressed.  Anyone who would look at her from the outside would think she had every reason to be happy.  She had a handsome husband and very beautiful and accomplished and talented children. She had a large and elegantly decorated home and was provided every comfort in life that anyone could imagine.  Her husband was a prominent physician and they lived what most people would think to be a charmed life.  They had just about everything and anything that life could offer and wanted for nothing except for one thing---she wasn't happy.  Eve (as I will call her) struggled for some time, and never felt happy.  She went to all kinds of doctors, who diagnosed and put her on medications that were meant to make her feel better.  She lost weight,  which you'd think would make anyone happy and boost their esteem, but even a slimmer body didn't cheer her up. Her husband and children were at a loss and felt horrible that she was so miserable.

One day, Eve knew that she could not continue to live this way, and determined that there had to be a way to feel better that she had not explored.   For the lack of something to do, she decided to go down to the convalescent center which was located close-by her home, and paid a few visits to some elderly women she knew there.  She entered the home, and found her way down the long hallway to  the room of the first woman who greeted her with joy.  How happy she was to get a visitor, and an unexpected one at that.  Together the women chatted, and many stories were heard of a past life, family and children.  Laughter was heard and warmth was felt between them.  This emotion was vaguely familiar to her, but it grew and grew as they chatted. The conversations ended, and Eve was on to the next room, and was greeted much in the same way as the first visit.  Time passed, memories shared, and joy once again filled Eve.  She was beginning to feel alive again, though at first she didn't understand it.  By the time she had visited the last woman in the convalescent home, Eve's countenance was transformed.  She felt warmth in her heart, joy in her soul and she smiled as she left to walk back down that long corridor to the parking lot.  She had become a different woman.  She was happy and actually felt it.

As Eve contemplated the conversations she had with each woman, and reviewed the feelings expressed and shared, she understood that if she wanted to be happy, she needed to give something away and the more she gave the more that came back into her own.  Eve gave away her time, compassion and listening ear, and the natural consequence of doing something good like that, was happiness.  Her spirits were lifted as she lifted the spirits of others. 

Eve's darkness  had been replaced by happiness, for the first time in a very long time.  She determined that she would continue her visits there, and did.   Each visit she would do something a little different for these women, who were so happy to see her.  She brought a new brush and brushed and styled the hair of one woman.  She painted her fingernails of another.  For the next, she brought a favorite treat to share, that had been mentioned in a previous visit. 

Eve's whole countenance changed, as she reached out to serve others.  She never dreamed that by doing something so simple, could have such dramatic effects on herself.  As her family witnessed the change in their mother and wife, they too joined in and also became involved with visiting more and more people at the convalescent center.  They all understood the joy that a simple visit would bring. 

Friends of Eve's saw the change and asked her what had made the difference in her, because she was joyful and seemed to glow.  When she told them, they too joined in, and this service at the convalescent center became a ripple effect throughout the neighborhood and community. 

When we reach out and serve others, it does come back to us.  Happiness is something that comes when we forget about ourselves and reach out to others.

I hope that all of you who read this post will go out and find your own happiness just like Eve, and if you do, please write back to me and share your experience.

Best regards, Kathleen Gauger