A Life-Changing Smile
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A Life-Changing Smile
By Albert Gindi
Original Essay
The Power Hidden in a Simple Gesture
Through all the kind gestures one may encounter throughout his day, there is one simple movement whose power triumphs all. It may just seem like an upward twisting of the mouth, but anyone who has ever felt one in its true warm and genuine form knows its power. For though you may want to scoff at the thought, it would be hard to deny that within this simple flashing of the teeth lies the potential to change another’s life forever. Let’s not underestimate what that shine can do, let’s not ignore the value of a life changing smile.
What a Smile Is Worth According to the Gemara
It may sound like an overstatement to you, but when The Gemara in Ketuvot discusses a smile and its importance, it says that displaying that show of acceptance is a greater generosity than offering a cup of milk. We could do more with the good feeling in our hearts than with the dollars in our pocket. Therefore, one gets only six blessings for giving charity, while one offering a smile will be showered with a total of eleven.
A Hot Day in Brooklyn
Sam doesn’t take more than three steps from doorsteps before the bullets of sweat start forming on his forehead. The weatherman had forecasted a heat wave, but an outdoor inferno would have been a better description.
He sighs as he checks the new silver banded watch his father had given him for his birthday, discovering that he would now have to run to make up for those moments of indecision. “Pondering over whether to put on your sports jacket never pays Sam,” He mutters under his breathe. “It never pays.”
Picking up the pace until it was almost a run, Sam begins jogging on the overcrowded sidewalk of Brooklyn, wondering when the sun would decide to have mercy and spare him from its wrath. Those black lined sport shoes came in handy now as he dodged past an old lady carrying more groceries than she could handle, and a four year old boy doing zigzags on his little blue tricycle.
The traffic light changed just a tad bit too quickly, causing Sam to sigh as the face of his watch revealed that time was moving too fast for his liking. He caught his breathe as he stared intently at the red light, shooting off like a bullet the second it turned green.
Running Late to Yeshiva
It was difficult weaving through all that foot traffic, and more than one person gasped in shock as he ran past them. It didn’t matter though, Rabbi Cohen had warned him that one more late this week would land him in detention, and there are few places he would rather be.
Ten minutes later the old brown building comes into view. It was just as well, for at this point he was completely out of breathe, with every fiber of clothing glued with sweat to his skin. Detention or not, water was the only thing on his mind right now as he forced his legs to climb those large stone steps, his hand gripping the banister hard.
He searches around for something to quench his thirst, but the maintenance guy had decided that the most optimal time to work on the pipes would be when everyone is arriving at Yeshiva, thirsty and desperate for something to calm the heat. Left without even the distasteful water flowing from the sink; your friend searches in absolute desperation for something, anything, to heal him of such intense dehydration.
Water, Milk, and the Smile Test
This is where you come in. Feeling like a superhero saving lives through the power within you to pour liquid, you whip out your cold, refreshing, hydrating, life giving, superbly incredible bottle of Poland Spring water and begin pouring him a drink. His eyes are filled with glee as he lunges for the cup, the absolute bliss clear on his face as the cool water touches his lips, refreshing his body and saving his life.
But that’s not all. Take it a step further and say that instead of just giving him water, you gave him a nice cool refreshing cup of milk. This way in addition to quenching his great thirst, you also gave much needed nutrients which will supply him with a great bout of energy to go about his day.
Yet somehow if you had left him in that same state of heat with the heat glaring down his back, and a throat as dry as the Savanna desert and desperate for a drink. Somehow if you had put down your life saving miracle Poland Spring bottle of water and given him a nice genuine smile, you would have left him much better off. For some reason, that flashing of the teeth is more valuable to a dehydrated, nutrient lacking individual than an ice cold cup of refreshing milk. (Ever since I’ve learnt this, whenever I’m walking with my wife past a concession stand on a hot day and she tells me how thirsty she is, I just smile at her and keep moving).
Why This Is So Difficult to Understand
This is a statement which is very hard to understand, because this poor individual seems no better off than he was before. He’s still standing there all thirsty, greatly lacking much needed liquid to wet his lips. What is so valuable about your friendly gesture? I mean, come on- you just smiled at him. What did you do for him already?
Dreams, Reality, and the Cost of Success
As much as we would all like to sit in bed and magically become rich, famous, and successful, sadly there is something about reality that stops that from happening. Unfortunately, if you want to become successful, you’re going to have to work for it. You need the passion within you to keep you moving, and enough guts to make sure nothing will stop you. If you want something, you need to go after it- whatever it may be.
What this means is that there is a road that each one of us must take to reach our dreams, a road requiring certain character traits to ride it. If there is something great which you yearn to reach during your time here on this earth, it will only be achieved by following a certain formula. For there are two things standing at the center of any success; the first is vulnerability, and the second- shame. If you don't have the strength to make yourself vulnerable in a way that will lead to extreme shame, you will never become successful.
Fear of Failure and Playing It Safe
This is a rule tried and true throughout the ages, whether you aspire to become the next billionaire or simply to own your own pizza shop. You may want nothing more than to start that company and make it big, but something scares you. “What will happen if I fail?” we ask ourselves.
We all know how many people start companies with a great fervor, only to find themselves a bankrupt pity case a year later. And that is not a place we want to be, the last thing we want to be remembered for, is the broke loser who didn’t make it.
Relationships, Risk, and the Fear of Getting Hurt
Or perhaps we want nothing more than to find the right girl who you can settle down and build a beautiful life with, only to be stopped by so many thoughts. After all, it’s not even an exaggeration to say that most people don’t make it, why should I try my luck at it?
Do you know how many girls fall in a passionate love with a guy they are sure to spend the rest of their life with, only to find themselves dumped a year later? Or maybe a guy marries the perfect girl, finding out not too long after she accepts the ring, that he’s mistaken what he thought to be an angel, for the devil.
And then what follows after is not too pretty. There’s the heartbreak, the divorce, and the children who will never forgive you—forever wondering why you destroyed their perfect family. And though you may try to move on and forget about her, you can’t help but be kept up at night wondering over and over where it went wrong.
Yes, unfortunately these tales are neither a fantasy nor an exaggeration; they are consequences of what happens when we fail to achieve what we set out to do. We all know the stories, the tales of people crushed under the rocks of their dreams. And though we’re not all sure where we’d like to be, one thing is for certain—it’s not over there.
Avoiding Risk by Avoiding Life
With this illuminating thought in mind, there are various approaches people take as a way of accepting the news. Some of them take the safe route, thereby condemning themselves to a life of loneliness and poverty—preferring to know from the start that they’re failures rather than take the risk at success.
Therefore, even if they find a relationship which they strongly desire to build and develop, they will push it away. Acting as if they’re not interested, like the last thing they want to do is be in a friendship or marriage which they so very long for.
They know that by admitting to the desire to connect, they are putting themselves at risk of rejection, and that consequence is filled with too much hurt and shame. It’s not a position they can even imagine being in. So they push away all opportunity for relation.
After all, you can never be rejected—if you never tried in the first place.
Buried Dreams and Quiet Regret
And let’s not forget all those passions that are swallowed up in the dust, never to see the light of day. How many of us have dreams which we hide under our mattresses, taking all that effort which could have been spent on our dreams, and instead use it to cover them.
How many of us want to become a famous speaker, or a painter which the likes of Da Vinci can’t compete with. How many of us want to build great organizations helping millions of people, become a life-saving doctor, or the greatest composer of your day.
There are so many different dreams, held inside by so many different people, caged in by the fear of the rejection we will receive by exposing them to the world. (I would have put professional athlete in the NBA on the list, but we all know that as short Jews we would never stand a chance.)
Childhood Imagination and Growing Up
What’s the general process?
We are young, fresh in this world with big eyes and an even bigger imagination. Our curiosity bursting for this new amazing planet which we will call home for the rest of our lives, confident that whatever it is that we would like to reach is ours for the taking.
We imagine our future day in day out, confident that it is just a matter of time before we accomplish our goals.
I remember how as a kid I planned on building a roller coaster way bigger than Kingda Ka in my very own backyard. I was going to charge a couple of bucks for whoever wanted to ride it, and was fully confident that it wouldn’t be too long before there would be lines around our block.
I didn’t know what building permits were, and neither did I care. There was no need to look into how much this project would cost me, or even to measure whether a huge roller coaster could even fit in my backyard.
I’m going to break the news to you now before you start asking where you can order tickets—we didn’t end up building it. It was for the best, because my family probably would have never had a moment of peace with this huge line of people crowded in our backyard waiting to ride my work of art.
But that didn’t matter to me. None of that mattered to that little eight-year-old with an imagination big enough to build a universe inside of. All that mattered was that I had a dream, and no matter how crazy or unrealistic that dream may be, I was going after it.
Jewopoly and the Death of Passion
Then there was the time not too long after, when I wanted to create a new famous board game that still hasn’t hit the shelves at a store near you. It would be called Jewopoly, which in short was Monopoly with a Jewish twist.
All of the properties would be Jewish sites and shuls, and you would have to pay maaser instead of income tax. Instead of having a thimble or a car as a piece to move around, you would be given tefillin, a tzedakah box, or a challah knife. (Which I realized may be potentially dangerous upon further consideration.)
And though these may have been noble and great dreams, I stopped pursuing them.
The reason I stopped pursuing them is because I grew up.
Growing up—defined as throwing away any passion you hold within upon realizing that this cold world limits you in an endless amount of ways and you will never make it.
Growing up means to stop dreaming, to wake up and live in a harsh reality where you will be laughed at if you ever step out of the box we call normal.
The Formula Every Dream Requires
Certain ingredients make up the DNA of any dream which reaches fulfillment. Certain ideas, leading to actions required to succeed. Know what they are and you can accomplish any goal you set for yourself.
Firstly, we must be conscious that although the mind is a place which holds no limits, this world most definitely does.
Many boundaries will limit our dreams from the first second that we introduce them to reality.
So bring that into your calculations.
Know that you have to be prepared to do two things.
The first is to expect.
The second is to accept.
Expecting Difficulty Without Quitting
What expectance means is realistically measuring what it is that we are up against. Don’t think that it’s going to be a honky-dory ride on a merry-go-round.
There are going to be a lot of twists and turns all along, risking to throw us off at every step of the way.
That’s okay though. You have risen to the challenge. You know the punches will start rolling—and you’re going in the arena anyway.
Because you’ve accepted the circumstances for what they may be, you know the game is full of challenges and difficulties, yet you’ve committed to play no matter what.
Commitment Changes the Question
This commitment should not be taken lightly in any way. You must fully appreciate the value of the statement that you have put forth, the gauntlet which you have thrown down.
For at this point you are no longer asking yourself whether you should be doing this, but rather how you should be doing this.
The difference between those two thoughts lie on completely different spheres.
So long as you are still deciding whether you want to spend the rest of your life with this girl, you will run out the door at the first sign of danger.
Marriage, No Escape Routes, and Real Investment
Shortly after I proposed to my wife, I told her, “I want you to know that no matter what happens, I will always stay together with you.”
She was surprised that I was bringing up such a morbid topic during such a happy period in our lives.
But I explained to her that I wanted to set the bar from the start.
Because otherwise, if you have that little thought in your mind that if she is just crazy enough you will abandon her and start anew, you will never be invested enough to fight through whatever battles may arise.
Shame, Failure, and the Road to Success
If you have a dream which you wish to pursue, you need to be willing to make yourself vulnerable at all sides.
You must accept that you will probably fail at first.
The road to success is paved with broken glass.
Experience is the result of bad judgment.
Good judgment is the result of experience.
If you can’t accept the shame of being a failure, you will never have the pride of being a success.
The Two Beliefs That Paralyze People
There are two types of beliefs that keep a person from chasing his dreams.
The first is believing you are nothing.
The second is believing you are G-d.
Though they seem opposite, they stem from the same issue—a lack of connection.
Why Connection Changes Everything
Connection changes everything.
When someone comes over and gives a warm gesture, he starts to feel accepted.
And the more he is welcomed in, the more his self-esteem is elevated from a nothing to a somebody.
He knows that he is not perfect, and yet somebody still loves him and accepts him for who he is.
Suddenly, he can make himself vulnerable.
The shame becomes survivable.
Why Nothing Is Worth More Than a Smile
It is for this reason that nothing is worth more than a smile.
You may be taking somebody from the outside world and bringing him in.
You are believing in him—and therefore he can believe in himself.
That smile may allow him to take a risk.
And that picture of your smile will help him more than anything else in the world.
Disclaimer
This essay was written by Albert Gindi and is an original work. No advertising, affiliate links, or monetization is associated with this page.