My favorite thing about anyone is their smile. It’s the first thing I notice about anyone I meet, and it is probably the one thing I remember about everyone who has ever crossed my orbit. I love to see people smile; I even love to make people smile. When I recently sat down to think about why, I figured it’s because I realize now that life is anything but easy. I now know that behind a smile lay a thousand tales of tough days and a billion wars won, that a smile is like a battle scar in whose edges are stories of triumph in battles unspoken of. I now know how hard life can be. I know it can come at you from so many different angles that you begin to lose your sense of direction. I know how it sometimes seems easier to crawl up in a corner and stay there as opposed to going out there and trying again. I know how easy it is to lose your smile, how easy it is to forget what your own genuine laughter sounds like. And so when someone smiles, I know in that very moment, nothing else matters. In that very moment, how yesterday was and how tomorrow is going to be is irrelevant; whether yesterday was all volcanoes and storms, or a blissful sunny day is insignificant. When someone smiles, nothing else but that very moment matters, they are living in that one moment. And really, that’s all we could ever do: take one moment and live the entire crap out of it. Time is the most precious gift given us by God over which we have no control. A moment will come and go by, and never come back, whether or not you choose to live it. The past is long gone and try as we may, we cannot change it. The future is jam-packed with uncertainty. And so, again, all we could ever do is take one moment and live it out as best as we can because it is evidently all we are given.
So... hey you, I do not know you, and I haven’t got a clue what you’ve been through. But you should know, you should hear it from me, that your smile is precious, your smile is a treasure. And I hope that you smile a little bit more. I hope that you find those little moments of pure bliss on an awful day and just… smile. I hope you find people who make you smile, people who make you laugh till it feels as though all the air has been sucked out your lungs. I hope you find people who tell you how warm and radiant your smile is, how your smile reminds them of...I don’t know...a July sunset? I hope you do more things that make you smile. Hell, I hope you make your own damn self laugh. I hope you laugh out loud at the jokes you haven’t even said yet. I hope you make memories that you can look back on with a grin on your face when you feel you can’t make any new ones. I hope you can learn to smile at the most mundane things in life; like a sunrise, pouring rain or colorful flowers and chirping birds. I hope you smile so often that your frowny face looks and feels as though it were a stranger's plastered onto yours. I hope you can learn to live your life one smile at a time. I hope you smile a little bit more, champ. I hope you smile a little bit more.