The Weekly Smile 1/14/2019 #weeklysmile

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weeklysmile2a

It is time for this week’s smile!  I’m going to talk about two things today.  The first is that I was influenced by Piglet in Portugal’s smile from a few weeks ago and after a small, wet snowfall decided to build a little snow-person:

snowman

Not great, but it was fun.  I haven’t built one in ages.  I don’t even remember if I have done one since I was a child.  It didn’t last long, but that doesn’t matter.

Another smile was a post in a music forum I follow.  Someone posted that a small poor church next to his work place had been broken in to with the burglar stealing the PA system and keyboard.  So this person donated a small PA, worked with a local locksmith to make the place secure and was asking donations for a new keyboard.  People were coming out of the woodwork to volunteer.

Several people on this thread went into rants about how awful the world is.  Everyone is a thief, stealing from poor churches to feed their heroin habits!  Everyone is awful.  Funny, but I saw the opposite.  There was one bad person out there that did this awful deed, but there were a lot of good people working to fix it.  People donated time, money and equipment.  Even the people who didn’t cared.

One person can do an unbelievable amount of damage.  But if we take the challenge, the rest of us can do an unbelievable amount of good.  Those out there doing terrible acts are a very small minority.  The majority feel for the victims and another minority, but much bigger than the bad one, doe something about it.  Perhaps it is time to join that second minority :)

My double smile was about letting someone else’s smile influence me to be silly and feel good about it, and about those people who care enough to help someone up after a bad person knocked them down.

What made you smile?

****

Come on, I’m sure you smiled at least once last week.  Why don’t you share it?  I hope you can join in!

Here is list of “rules” and guiding ideas.  If you don’t have time to read it right now, just remember that this is an exercise to spread positivity.  Don’t smile about the misfortune of others.  Don’t smile in a way to excludes others.  Make sure a 12 year old can read it.

And remember, the Smile can be anything, large or small.  Nothing, nothing at all is too small for a Smile!  Sometimes taking time to notice those small, every day smiles is more important than those once in a lifetime huge ones :)

To join in, write a post to share your smile and then leave a comment on this post with a link to your smile.  Or, if you prefer, do a pingback to this post (pingback = have a link from your post to this one).   You can post any time until next Sunday evening (to be simple, I will say midnight GMT, which is 7 PM Sunday for me).   Next week I will compile all of the Smiles and do a separate post of them on Monday morning just before the smile.  (I will shoot for around 7 AM EST).

Try to use the hashtag #WeeklySmile when you use Twitter or other social media that uses hashtags. I searched Twitter and found that #weeklysmile had been used only a handful of times back in 2012 and 2013. It hasn’t been used since. So it’s ours! I also registered it on Twubs.

You can use the graphic at the top. It is the official graphic for the event.

Now go out there and find something to smile about! :)

***

“There are days I go in search of the kind, compassionate, loving and beautiful. Despite what we sometimes see on the news, FB and elsewhere, there is much more beauty in the world than ugliness, much more kindness than hate or cruelty. Perhaps we should all have a goal to make at least one person smile every day.”

***

When I used to do a monthly compassion post, this was my theme:

Empathy is the glue that holds society together and compassion is what makes a group of people a civilization. Without holding our hands out to our fellow humans we become savages. We are all in this together, in a closed system, so we must all help each other. How lonely life must be for those selfish people who don’t realize this simple truth! How lonely for anyone who doesn’t realize that all are our brothers and sisters! How lonely must the self-righteous be!

51 thoughts on “The Weekly Smile 1/14/2019 #weeklysmile”

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  3. Corina

    I wish more people would see the world like you do…there are a lot of bad people that do bad things but there are more of us that are good and do things to right the wrong that the bad people do. That’s an important view.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    2. trentpmcd Post author

      Hi Gary, I’m doing the recap and can’t find the story about the writing you did last week.. Did you pull it? Let me know if it’s still up and I’ll link to it. Thanks!

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      Reply ↓
      1. Gary A Wilson

        G’day Trent. Well, I don’t know what happened to that post, but I found it in the deleted bin and can’t restore it without republishing it to my followers. So, I recast it as a blog page and kept the same name but added a classic “v2” to the name – which is otherwise the only change. If I had an actual history to review, I’m almost sure that operator error is as fault, but I hope not. Anyway, here’s the new link to the same short piece.
        https://garyawilsonstories.wordpress.com/even-technical-writing-is-writing-v2/

        Thanks for the heads up.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓
        1. trentpmcd Post author

          Thanks. Link added :) I sometimes have weird things happen with WP. Sure, I know some of the them are user error, but usually my error is because I don’ understand their odd system.

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  5. Piglet in Portugal

    I like your snowman, Kent. :) Sometimes it is good to step back and look at the world in innocence through the eyes of a child. As for bad people v good I think the problem is the Media like to focus on the doom and gloom of life…. and… I was watching a discussion on the writing forum I manage. It was regarding ‘Sensitivity Beta Readers’. What appalled me was the intolerance by some Americans politicians/people to certain groups. I watched paralysed as the discussion unravelled, by such hatred and bigotry.

    I am heartened to read of the kindness shown to to the guy’s local church and how strangers were moved to help. IF we can hold on to this kindness in our hearts and pass it on thyen there would be more smiles.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks. I agree, a big part of the problem started with the 25 x 7 news channels. Since they have to fill all of that time, and bad news sells better than good news, that’s what you see, gloom and doom. Of course there is still too much hatred and bigotry, and I think it is either getting worse or those hateful people now feel emboldened by leaders who repeat those hateful words and ideas. It is scary. But I think that it is just the last kicking of a dying beast. I hope at least! But, I’ll keep my positive attitude :) I’ll try to pay attention to the good, hold the kindness in my heart and, as you see, I am trying to pass on at least a few smiles :)

      Liked by 1 person

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  14. dprastka

    I absolutely LOVE this Trent! I lead my life by trying to make people smile. I truly believe that a positive attitude gets you farther in life than a negative one and I agree with you, there are far more good, honest, hard working people in this world than bad. I love how everyone came together to help out the church. I also LOVE your snowman, how that put a smile on your face made me smile too! :D
    I am not the greatest at technology but will write about something that made me smile and see if I can get it to link. Thank you for the SMILE! -Diana <3

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Hi Diana! I’ve enjoyed doing this little blog event and seeing all of the smiles that people share and I’m glad I made you smile. Th little snowman was a lot of fun :) I hope you are able to join in.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      There are a lot of good people – we always here bad news and don’t listen to the good quite enough. Of course Canada has always been known for it’s “good people” – I hope it spreads down here ;)

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  20. Paula Light

    Aww I like your snowperson! It’s been “cold” here in SoCal, but not snow-cold. It did hail in Garden Grove on Saturday! My friend took a video, which made me smile, but that’s not a whole post, plus I’m not sure if we should smile about hail, since it could hurt someone. I’ll come up with something!😀

    Liked by 1 person

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  25. delphini510

    I really did share in your smiles; the sweet snow person who lost his
    button 😊 and like you I believe there is more good than bad in the
    world. Thing is, the bad is noisier.

    Will try and contribute at times.

    miriam

    Liked by 1 person

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