**Happy Monday is a series that have been started to encourage, feel good and bring a Smile to your face. Monday is the end of our freedom, time to go back to the daily grind of work and sweat. I usually try my best to look at Monday as any other day and carry on with the routine by doing/reading/ meeting/ eating something that would make me happy and make Monday bearable for me. Some weeks Monday proved to be like the best day of my week too because of that. (Fine don’t believe me guys, I will prove) I will post stuff that brings a smile to my face, hope it brings one on your face too.

SMILE

A smile is a facial expression formed by flexing the muscles near both ends of the mouth and by flexing muscles throughout the mouth.Some smiles include contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes.(Wikipedia)

I believe in the theory that if you can’t make anyone Happy then try not to make them sad atleast.

Everyday including Mondays, I try to smile often. What started as very mechanical experiment some years back with thoughts like “Hello, I am sad, I can’t smile” to “I look crazy with that smile on the road” changed into a Smile with all my heart. I know it sounds silly to even think about smiling when things are at it’s worse best, but then does getting annoyed or crying ever helped anyone?

So next time you meet anyone, just anyone show them your pearly whites. And if there is someone in front of you whom you can’t stand (like boss, your ex, annoying colleague) then do it mechanically, just think you are showing them your teeth and not smiling. Everything is inside us, truth, happiness, stupidity, anger, wisdom. It’s upon us what we choose for ourselves. I really don’t understand when I hear people saying that they can’t control their anger. It’s not like they have extra “anger” cells in their body, or is it ?  It’s an excuse. FYI – Angry people are weak, but more about that later. Anyhoo I am sure one day Smiling won’t be mechanical and we all would win by fighting over our own weakness.

Sometime last year a friend of mine changed the way i felt about “passing a smile” to strangers.I am a smiling person but am wary to pass a smile to strangers.(roadside romeo’s are not included) So once over a casual conversation she shared that how she travels by metro everyday to work.And the frisking lady at the entrance was usually in the same frowning expression of hers.She decided that from next day onwards she would smile and wish the frisking lady Good Morning.She did it next day and to her surprise lady replied and smiled back.My friend was way too happy that she could bring a moment of pleasure over the lady’s monotonous routine by making her smile.Listening to her made me decide that I too would do the same when i travel by metro next.It wasn’t as easy as it looked earlier.I talk a lot, but i am basically a shy person(does that makes sense?) All my way i was mentally preparing myself to wish the frisking lady Good Morning.When my turn came she looked annoyed and pissed.I said loudly “Good Morning” and smiled, the lady looked at me sternly, pulled my cheeks and said “Afternoon hogya hai”(It’s afternoon), we both smiled, actually i laughed at my stupidity and moved on feeling really happy and content that i could genuinely bring a smile to someone’s face.

I now follow what i read sometime back – “Sometimes, smile is not the effect but rather becomes the cause of happiness”

Over the weekend some friends of mine and me decided to make our other friends Happy! We made these bookmarks for all of us and gifted them too. They were surprised and the cuteness overload end product sure did make all of us very happy!

So today I am carrying my SMILE bookmark with me (okay I got some weird stares, some aww stares and I don’t care) and this made my Monday Happy! So how you planning to make your Monday good?

Happy Monday!