If you've been around for fifty years or so, and if you interact with
people 15 to 30 years old, you have probably noticed a marked trend away
from the phony "putting on a happy face" you saw so much as a child. It
is becoming more and more common for people to have given up trying to
fool others into thinking they're happy and feeling good when they're
not.
I think this is a good trend. It is a trend away
from fake smiles and fake bubbliness and toward authenticity and
honesty. It is a trend away from worrying about what others may think
and toward relying on what you think. Emerson called this Self-Reliance.
There is a drawback to this trend, however. I will explain the drawback in a minute, but first read this experiment from an article on humor:
"The
actual expression on your face might make it easier or harder to see
what's funny. This idea comes from an experiment by Fritz Strack, a
psychologist at Mannheim University in Germany. He took a bunch of
people and told them he was going to test their physical skills. Then he
showed them a series of cartoons and told them to rate the cartoons'
funniness. But he told them to hold a pen in their mouth while they did
it. Half of them were told to hold it between their lips; the other
half, between their teeth.
"The ones with the pen between their teeth rated the cartoons as funnier.
"Apparently,
when they held the pen between their lips, they couldn't smile, but
when it was between their teeth, they were forced to smile the whole
time, and that physical change in their facial expression changed how
funny something was. Interesting. And it might have some usefulness to
you in your quest to see things as funny."
In another article,
this one about developing an attitude that will help you accomplish
goals, you find out about two more experiments along the same lines:
"The
researcher Patricia Ruselli did an experiment that went like this: The
subject was brought in and told to watch a slide presentation designed
to produce sadness. Half the subjects were told to frown while they
watched it. The other half were told not to frown.
"For several hours afterwards, the people who frowned felt more depressed than the people who didn't frown...
"Another
bit of evidence comes from a pilot study that found when people were
injected with Botox to get rid of furrowed brows, it improved their
mood, showing in particular, decreases in symptoms of depression. Even
when your facial expression is changed with a paralyzing toxin, it can
alter your emotional state.
"The point of all this is for you to realize that when you change your facial expression, you change your feelings."
The
drawback I see from the trend toward authenticity is more bad moods.
Here's how it works: Something makes you feel less than happy. You
honestly frown or purse your lips or whatever. And then that outward and
honest expression of your negative state makes you more likely to be in
a bad mood longer, to find things less humorous, etc.
Does
this mean you have a choice between being genuine and natural or being
an artificial, back-slapping, glad-handing, insincere but happier
person? I don't think so. Like many other things, this issue is not a
black-and-white, all-or-nothing problem. Thinking of it in those terms
is another significant cause of bad moods, oddly enough, but that's another story (read more about that here).
The distinction missing here is your intention. The reason you
do something has a big effect on your mood. For example, you can smile
at someone in order to fool them into thinking you're happy when you're
not. That's one reason to smile. But that's obviously not the only
reason possible. You can smile as a gift. You can smile simply to
experiment with the effect of smiling on your mood.
The first smile will probably give you a bad feeling. Being fake for self-serving reasons feels bad,
even if the physical act of turning up your lips might improve your
mood in the longer run. But the second two reasons for smiling would
allow you to have the improved mood without the sour taste in your mouth
from being phony. Your intention matters a lot.
Being authentic can improve your mood if it's done right. It can contribute to a genuine and heartfelt enthusiasm for living. (Read more about that here.)
Pay attention to the look on your face, the way you move your body,
even the way you breathe. All these can have an impact on your mood. Do
it for the right reasons, and you can have your integrity and feel good
too.
Adam Khan is the author of Self-Reliance, Translated and Principles For Personal Growth. Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.
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