The muscle fact certainly explains why so many people seem to be completely indifferent. In fact, the best place to demonstrate this is public transport, especially during rush hour. Nevertheless, it clearly does not explain how people prefer to frown when it will be easier, faster, and more enjoyable for themselves and everyone else around to smile….even to deliver the same speech.

I do not know for you but I know from personal experience that it is so easy to get engrossed in a book or the newpaper or just in your own world while commuting, that sometimes we end up feeling like human machine. When was the last time something was different, such as a silent or not so silent exchange with a perfect stranger? Was a smile exchanged by any chance?

In fact how did you feel last time you exchanged a smile with a perfect stranger, or even just received one from a perfect stranger? Worth smiling to a perfect stranger tomorrow during your daily commuting?

And even better what about smiling to the people you love.

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Monk (1926-)