Strangers Telling You To Smile, and Similar Stupid Crap

At the end of last year, some twee little print-outs started appearing on the walls of the Camberwell/Chelsea/Wimbledon Progression Centre. They were preaching something about how we should all smile because it tricks our brains into thinking we're happy and blah blah blah... we've all heard it before. I don't know where they came from. They could have been part of someone's work, or they could have been an idea of a staff member (the type who's also into "team building exercises" and probably at one point has used the phrase "cool beans"). I wasn't really curious, and I also wasn't that irritated by them, no matter how I sound right now. However, I do find the whole business of "advice" of that sort really patronising. Stuff about how many more muscles it takes to frown than to smile (completely ignoring the fact that using more muscles is generally considered a positive thing)... or when strangers tell you to smile, presumably because they've mistaken your normal face for an angry one or something like that (and since when did it become socially acceptable to give orders to random strangers? Whether it's to "smile" or to "roll over," it's not okay)... it's a shame that crap like this has to be the face of positivity. Being happy is a VERY GOOD THING, but thoughtless "advice" does not solve anyone's problems. "Turn that frown upside down!" may have worked for someone at some point, but now it's just cliched and meaningless, and throwing it at people at random points is likely to have a bad effect. Generic, overused advice is sort of like a crowbar in a way. Crowbars were designed for a specific purpose, but people just hit things with them. All advice becomes shitty advice when you use it thoughtlessly. Please don't put up posters telling everyone to smile as if you've assumed that no one has any real problems. And please don't tell strangers to smile as if their current mood is just a mistake and they have no reason to be that way. (And please don't assume people are unhappy based on nothing.)

To sum up! Silly advice. Crowbars. I have made a short video based on this.