I am not into statistics but one in particular caught my attention. A very interesting fact is that kids laugh/smile around 150 times a day, adults 3-5 times maximum.
I would like to share some personal experience.
Some time ago I was going through some rough period. Of course my friends and family was there for me, they were trying to help me in every possible way, to make it easier for me and to bring my smile back. The only person who was able to make me calm and to push away all the negative energy that was ruling my body was my nephew (at the moment 1 year old).
I am a philology student and I like to believe that I know how important language and all that is connected to it is. If you open whichever linguistic book, you will find at least 3 times a quote or a statement that language is what we are. Very true, indeed. Our culture is language, our thoughts are language, and our beings are language. We can’t really think of something if we lack language. It seems that the structure of our language, with its predetermined categories, must have an influence on how we perceive the world. In its weak version, the idea of linguistic relativity simply captures the fact that we not only talk, but to a certain extent probably also think about the world of experience, using the categories provided by our language. In its strong version (linguistic determinism), the idea is restated as ‘language determines thought’, meaning that we can only think in the categories provided by our language. Even though language is an incredibly complex system that we use daily without even giving it too much though ( ever wondered about discourse analysis: cohesion, coherence, speech events, conversational analysis as turn-taking, back-channeling, co-operative principles, hedges and implicatures, schemes and scripts that you all carry in your brains? No… and you don’t need too), language is just the ability to communicate (internally and externally). The thing that many seem to forget is that language often fails us to express our emotions (poetry proves it
.My nephew can’t talk yet, but he was the only one who truly helped me. His pure emotional frame gave me a kick in my soul/heart, however you want to call it. I am just trying to point out that we aren’t just language and actions, we are also energy. I won’t even try to explain energy, since language will fail me one more time.
When socializing, communicating with ourselves, with other living creature (and yes… I also mean plants and animals, not only people) we interfere firstly on energy level and then we are given the chance to shape it on the level of language and actions.
Smiling is an action, action that can be explained trough words, a clear print of energy that we carry on our faces. We all can recognize a fake and a real smile.
I can give you millions of examples how positive energy reflects on you and how negative energy does, but I am sure that you can think of examples yourself.
Now, how is all that connected to PUA?
It doesn’t matter how much PUA material we’ve read, how much we’ve practiced, how good we’ve become applying methods, reading body language, building up conversations, transitioning… the one thing that really matters is our own inner world and how it interferes with us and the surroundings. I’ve said millions of times that a conversational topic prepared beforehand (call it canned material if you want) can easily ruin your whole set. If the topic doesn’t match your state, your linguistic skills and energy won’t match which will lead to a boring conversation for all. We are human beings, our emotions, moods change ridiculously fast, sometimes even without giving us time to realize it. I guess people have already created a word for what I am trying to say here: HONESTY. The best way to keep somebody’s attention and interest is to talk about something you are passionate about.
Being positive is contagious.
Try smiling at a stranger on the street… just try it.
Try smiling at a friend of yours, without a particular reason.
Try smiling at yourself.
Our believes control our actions. Our energy is just the result of our believes. Once we change our believes, our energy changes itself as well. Once charged with positive energy, no matter how often words fail us, our smiles stay on and make the others around us smile as well.
When my nephew was in my arms, smiling at me, without saying a word… every negative aspect of my thoughts disappeared. His strong, pure, positive frame broke into pieces my negative one.
Don’t follow language, follow your energies.
Don’t let language and actions keep your state in prison. There’s way much more than that.
What I tried to explain here applies not only to opening, mid game and closing, it also applies to your everyday life and how you perceive yourself and the rest of the world.
Release positive energy and it will come back to you
Cheers
Jez
some people are friendly and not so stressed out by their boring lifes though and do smile back. I guess you use this as some kind of secret signal to find the cool people in the world.