Q: I am writing to you about our grandsons. Both of them are teenagers. I swear that neither of them has smiled since the youngest turned 14 more than a year ago. They are always scowling. I see scowls on the faces of young people hanging around the malls Grandpa and I visit when we go to the city.
Is it just me and what I am seeing or are our young people generally unhappier these days?
A: A lot of young people scowl and they have been doing so for a long time.
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Although many young people are generally confused these days and have been for at least two generations, I am not sure that they are as unhappy as their scowling suggests.
Many are drawn by the need to belong to their peer groups and they see scowling as the price of admission.
The irony is that each one has a better chance for social acceptance if he or she smiles than he has by scowling.
Smile and the whole world smiles with you. Scowl and the best you can hope for is a few scowlers scowling back at you. Let’s not forget that smiling is a universal language.
If you are interested in helping your grandchildren, try smiling at them. Smiling is infectious. Your grandchildren might resist the magnitude and power of the smile for a while, but not for long. They will eventually smile back and will feel better for having done so.
You can take this one step further. Ask your grandchildren what brings joy into their lives.
If people spent as much time celebrating the joys of their lives as they did regretting life’s disparities, the world would be safer for all of us.
