You sit nervously at your desk while your teacher gives back graded tests.  You studied all week.  You stayed up late.  You skipped date night.  You receive your test, quickly skim to the bottom, and see a crazy red symbol: A.  You breathe a sigh of relief, and finally let an ear-to-ear smile take over your face.

We’re accustomed to smiling after receiving after receiving positive news, hearing a great joke, or seeing our friends.  However, when you step back, you realize there are many smaller moments (that are less profound) that deserve a smile as well, as they happen much more frequently.  There are also functions under the skin surface that you never see, but can definitely feel.  Case in point: spend as much time smiling as possible (without being weird about it).

Here are our Top 10 Reasons to Smile:

1 – It’s healthy.  Smiling reduces stress…

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A collaborative twitter poem by @vivchook @troublegummer @brudberg @permabloom @myVogonPoetry and @stair71
To make it easier to read it’s added below.

The bed is so hot, and the moon outside taunts me,
Looking like a wedge of silver watermelon.
A lonely rooster crows restlessly in the dark,
Too early for dawn. Perhaps he can’t sleep, either.

I hear the regular breathing rising and falling beside me
Taunting me too with its cadence oblivious of this
And I lie here burning and look out that window
Knowing just two of us are together, alone

The silver wings of moonlight tempt and lure me out
as my bare feet seek the meadow grass of spring.
In the undergrowth a doe is hiding with her newborn fawn.
The coolness of the night so soothing to my pains.

A familiar predicament, that vague promise
Of a salve for the soul, a gift offered…

Trust that my need
to speak with you today
is crucial,
that my need
to hear your voice
above the heavily
trafficked silence
is pivotal to my existence.
No email or text message
will do,
don’t two-way or page me
I refuse
to bookmark this demand.
I need you
to whisper reassurance
through the currents,
as if I were the wire
your voice, the insulation;
may it electrify my skin again.

Our heart’s chambers and secrets
have their beats relinquished,
hung in the pendulous mind
of my alcoholic grandfather clock;
still downing our future
in shot glasses,
chasing it with my hopes
not bitter enough to spew back,
simply waiting
to be fermented.

So kindle me,
watch me scintillate excuses
still beaming for forgiveness.
Hold me between your fingers
and I’ll fuel your addiction
between the lighter
and your lips.
Inhale me slowly,
savor me long within your chest
as…

Time is precious they say

‘It’ refreshes us they say

makes us younger they say

by removing days that you earned

and learned

and played.