I saw this quote on a t-shirt recently and my first reaction was that it was funny – I’m a sucker for cute sayings on shirts, which make me giggle. And I have seen plenty of those faces showing clear disgust/dislike/disrespect – I may even be guilty of making some of those faces myself. But after thinking about it for a bit, it made me a little sad. I realized that it perpetuates the current culture of “I’m angry and I want the whole world to know all about it”. We have normalized a constant state of rage and seem to feel that we have a right to express our wrath, regardless of whose feelings may be hurt along the way.
I became slightly obsessed with the idea of these walking billboards of anger, so I consulted my best friend Amazon to see what else is out there and found this one: “Stop being the bigger person. Slash their tires.” I know this is supposed to be funny, and I promise you I truly do have a sense of humor (I’m British and sarcasm is our love language), but my goodness it is MEAN. It’s no wonder we’re all miserable and unhappy when we see these kinds of expressions in our daily lives and have become accustomed to this kind of “humor”. We have accepted this new normal, along with the practice of scattering angry and negative comments all over the various social media platforms when we see things we don’t like.
I really think we can find a way to be funny, but in a way that’s just nicer and more supportive of other humans. After all, we’re all in this together – and yes, there’s probably a t-shirt for this saying as well.
The other alternative, of course, is to look at the expression “if my mouth doesn’t say it, my face definitely will” as a reminder to keep smiling – a reminder that if my mouth doesn’t say “I’m happy”, my smile definitely will. On a recent trip through airport security, I lowered my facemask for the ID check and my beaming smile was rewarded with a heartfelt thank you from the officer who went on to tell me that I had made his day because the masks have taken away all the smiles he used to get before the pandemic. And, as is so often the case, his kind words also made my day. We have a choice to either begin a cycle of happiness with our words and actions or a cycle of misery. So perhaps the universe produced this shirt as a reminder to me that I need to make more of an effort with making sure that my face is shouting my happiness to the world, every chance I get, even when my mouth is quiet.
What are your thoughts on this? Drop me a line at becomeahappyist@gmail.com and let me know.
Have a happy day!
Emma
