This monthly challenge will be different than my previous ones in that it will literally affect every moment of my life for the next month. Exceptions to always smiling should only be made when it would definitely not be appropriate, such as hearing news of someone’s death. So, what counts as a smile? Below will be my thought pattern.

1. Always smile with the eyes. To be sure, smiling is done with the mouth. However, think about smiling and communicate this through the eyes even if there is not much upward curve of the lips.
2. For close-lipped smiles, make the faintest hint of smiling with the teeth and then close the lips. This will ensure that the curve of the lips is enough to make a smile, but not excessive, which can look weird with close-lipped smiles.
3. Try smiling with the teeth unless it feels awkward in the current environment. A lot of the time this type of smiling should work fine. The two main exceptions I can think of are while in class and sleeping.

I have been rather moody the past few weeks and this greatly affected my monthly challenge of decisiveness, which I will share about in my next blog post. For this reason as well as to help me live fully in the present moment, I believe consciously smiling for an entire month will be a great experiment. One change I am making starting with this month is not including philosophical appointed times as part of the challenge. These times should be a sanctuary both from scheduled tasks and activities as well as from my monthly challenges. This doesn’t mean I can’t smile during these times, it just means I don’t have to smile.

One hypothesis I want to test with this experiment is that a person will feel happier if they smile. If this is true, and I want to experience as much happiness as possible (who doesn’t?) then I will put more effort into smiling as a general paradigm to minimize depression.