What was my surprise when I discovered, on Instagram, this advice from a coach: "In the morning, to start your day off right, hold a pencil between your teeth to draw a smile on your face."
When I read the rest of the arguments, I knew that mine had started badly: "That smile has the power to trick your brain", "Start by looking happy, and you will become it for good" , etc
Is our brain really dumb enough to be fooled by such a signal?
Isn't the first condition of happiness that we be able to welcome what is – our state, our fatigue, our emotions…–, to enter into a relationship with it rather than covering it with the mask of a " to smile " ?
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life as it goes
Moreover, does not all spirituality, and perhaps even all wisdom, begin with a form of acceptance, a way of opening up to what is?
If I am sad, disappointed or anxious, bitter, melancholic or simply tired, why not first be tender with myself, gentle with my weaknesses, rather than doing violence to me in the mode of "if I want, I can”, while biting a pen in the morning?
Sometimes joy even comes from our ability to simply say, "That's the way it is."
But beware: this "it's like that" is not resigned;
it is affirmative.
He says full consent to life as it goes, recalls Nietzsche's big yes to life.
I wake up tired and anxious: that's how it is.
I get up with my stomach knotted by the memory of my stinging failure: that's how it is!
In video, ten rules to live happier
Sometimes it is enough for me to feel capable of such an affirmation, of such lucidity, for the strength to already promise to return.
Recognizing what annoys does not in any way prevent you from getting rid of it later, it is even probably the best way to achieve this.
There is no authentic happiness without an acceptance of our complexity.
Believing that displayed well-being will change as if by magic into inner well-being, or that it suffices, when our soul is injured, to force ourselves a little to get better, proceeds from a simplification of our humanity which risks do more harm than good.
We are not machines responding to signals, and that's good.
We can take our happiness in our hands without holding a pencil between our teeth.
Better to have a coffee or a Camus book,
open your eyes to the beauty of the world or the charm of people, to watch the children playing on the sidewalk or the strange brilliance of the sky this morning.
Wait, without forcing yourself, for the smile to come.
Or not.
Incentives
Read:
the essay
The New French Model
, by David Djaïz (at Allary Éditions), and the graphic novel
La Jeune Femme et la mer
, by Catherine Meurisse (at Éditions Dargaud).
Inspirations:
“On Instagram, the account @lolayogamore for a simple and authentic approach to yoga, and that of fashion photographer Henrik Purienne, @purienne, for his sensual and sunny aesthetic.”
(1) Philosopher and novelist, host of the Mondays philo (at the MK2 Odéon, in Paris) and of the podcast "A practical philosophy" (Spotify).
Latest books published:
The Meeting
(Allary Ed.),
The Planet of the Wise, complete
(Ed. Dargaud).
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