Smile

It happens every morning and every night. First thing and last thing respectively in the day of my two-year-old son, the “oldest” child of the family.

I prompt him to smile, by telling him just the word “smile”. And do you know what happens? He smiles. Flawless, relentless, 100% conversion rate. And automatically right after that, I smile. We could call it communication vessels or reaction chain, but definitively a good emotional connection in between son and father, father and son.

Why am I talking about this here? Well, let’s dive into that a few paragraphs further down the post. For the moment, let me explain why I do this every single day (and night).

I am not sure what is the real impact for the moment. Feedback is scarce… since my son is not fully able to speak yet. Well, he probably does, but unfortunately at least not in the language(s) I am able to understand. Maybe I should not blame him and demand most from my side. Smile.

The question is, when I do it at night, whether it would have any impact in his sleeping time. Would he be able to sleep better? To have better dreams? Or at least to have dreams instead of nightmares?

He likes “oto(s)”, “cacol(s)”, “hoze(s)”, “tatel(s)” and “patone”, what is the mix of languages he uses to describe “auto’s” (Dutch for cars), “caracoles” (Spanish for snails), horses, turtles and “panettone” (Italian for this famous cake). What if the last smile triggers dreaming better and he is able to set a full Disney performance in his mind with all these characters hanging around. It would be nice, right? Smiling cannot be harmful, so if anything is coming behind, might be positive.

Same for doing it every morning. Does it hurt? Can there be any negative impact on his behaviour? Do not think so. If any, just beneficial outcome.

After this detour I have taken here (it flows, sorry), the whole point I try to make is about the impact of smiling in life, regularly, fearlessly. That is a message I try, and want, to convey to my son, from cradle, as a baseline for his life. It is even more than a message, it is a principle.

There is significance (purposefulness perhaps better said), behind the “smile” request to him day in day out. No matter what life will throw at you later in the day, smile. No matter how terrible the day was today, smile.

And now let me come back to why I post about this all.

I have always been convinced, from genotype I suppose, that attitude means a lot, if not all in life, or at least in how you face it and its situations; tailwinds and headwinds. From phenotype, combining all the experiences I have had in my life, the things I do nowadays and others that will hopefully do, this is not any other than reaffirming myself into that convincement. Positive attitude cannot make things worse, if any, only better.

To some extent we all have had good-better-best and bad-worse-worst moments in life. It is ok, it happens. Nature (health) is something we can hardly control, or marginally. And it is not only about you and how you take care of yourself. It is also about your relatives. Things can happen to anybody. And about the (less important) rest, it is just the consequence of sharing life with others, within a society/community, of having dreams and ambitions, of fighting for a proper job and life.

In that sense, there might be a solution for everything: smile, enjoy the moment, no matter if it is a bad one. If that is the case, it will make you stronger, it will make you better, as a professional and as a person. There is always something to learn, something that will make you grow. And time will unravel that for you. Pictures become clearer over time. Patience. Smile. Laugh, even better, but let’s post about that other day.

And the good thing is that the all the above is teachable, is coachable. It does not require specific skills to get there. Just smile.

Closing up my writing and turning off Spotify. Amelie Soundtrack was playing, the soundtrack of this post as well. Let me take a look at the cover of the album… Amelie Poulain has a smile on her face… Coincidence?

Ignacio Vilas Eguileta

zenotalent Owner & Founder