Your Choice

Happiness, the act of feeling, showing, or expressing joy, is something that all of us want to have for the rest of our lives.  It comes from many different actions, from doing well in school to hanging out with friends, and is what we revolve our lives around.  We use happiness in our conversations every day, such as when we say “How are you?” or “Are you happy with it?”  But sometimes happiness may be hard to come by when something goes wrong in our life beyond our control or when we start to think about a sad moment.  During those times, we may believe that we can never be happy again; that happiness is not in our control anymore.  Truth be told though, happiness is in our complete control, both physically and mentally.  Happiness, It’s Your Choice.

Psychology can back me up on this statement.  Let me begin by explaining the science behind happiness.  To trigger the feeling of happiness, one must first be in a situation that would normally cause the feeling.  Once in that situation, the limbic system (mostly the emotion center) of the brain creates neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) that cause you to feel good, smile, and be happy.  These two chemicals are called serotonin and dopamine and they really control how happy or sad you are.  You’ve probably felt the effects of dopamine before during exercise; it was that feel-good, loose feeling you got after stretching or running or any other physical exercise.  So what does all this science mean?  It means that in order to be happy it only takes one happy thought or just simply going to a place that makes you happy.  Just doing that puts the events in motion in your brain to bring about happiness.  On the other hand, thinking sad thoughts or being in a sad place will of course bring about sadness.  So, as you can see, Happiness, It’s Your Choice.

If all of that science did not convince you, then let me give you some more evidence.  All that you need is a simple, 5-letter word, Smile.  We smile every single day of our life, sometimes controllably and sometimes unconsciously.  We smile when we laugh at a good joke, when we say hello to our friends, and even when we just walk into a room full of people.  Smiling can show people that we are not hostile and we are good people.  It really is the simplest thing in the world to do, considering that it takes more muscles to frown.  So how can this help you?  When you are feeling sad and down in the dumps, just smiling can bring you happiness.  When you are happy you smile, that’s pretty obvious.  What’s not as obvious is that smiling can trick your brain and body into being happy since it also releases serotonin and dopamine, which as I said before are the “happiness chemicals.”  So that means, when you smile you can be happy.  Once again, Happiness, It’s Your Choice.

Let me end with a short poem that I found from an anonymous writer that wraps all of this up:

Smiling is contagious,

you catch it like the flu,

When someone smiled at

me today, I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner,

and someone saw my grin -

When he smiled I

realized, I’d passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile,

then I realized its worth,

A single smile, just like mine,

could travel round the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin,

don’t leave it undetected -

Let’s start an epidemic quick

and get the world infected!!!