The Power of Smile
戴尔·卡耐基 / Dale Carnegie
戴尔·卡耐基（1888—1955），美国著名的心理学家和人际关系学家。卡耐基开创的“人际关系训练班”遍布世界各地。他以超人的智慧、严谨的思维，在道德、精神和行为准则上指导万千读者，给予人们安慰、鼓舞，使读者从中汲取力量，从而生活，开创崭新的人生。早期著作《人性的光辉》《语言的突破》《美好的人生》《人性的优点》曾被译成28种文字，其中《人性的弱点》一书，是继《圣经》之后世界出版史上第二畅销书！
Ace in the Hole
Understand these new words before you read this article.
1. grouch n. 不高兴的人
2. eliminate v. 清除
3. miserable adj. 痛苦的
You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.
I have asked thousands of business people to smile at someone every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk about the results. How did it work? Let’s see... Here is a letter from William B. Steinhardt, a New York stockbroker. His case isn't isolated. In fact, it is typical of hundreds of cases.
“I have been married for over eighteen years,” wrote Mr. Steinhardt, “and in all that time I seldom smiled at my wife or spoke two dozen words to her from the time I got up until I was ready to leave for business. I was one of the worst grouches who ever walked down Broadway.
“When you asked me to make a talk about my experience with smiles, I thought I would try it for a week. So the next morning, while combing my hair, I looked at my glum mug in the mirror and said to myself, ‘Bill, you are going to wipe the scowl off that sour puss of yours today. You are going to smile. And you are going to begin right now.’ As I sat down to breakfast, I greeted my wife with a ‘Good morning, my dear’, and smiled as I said it.”
“You warned me that she might be surprised. Well, you underestimated her reaction. She was bewildered. She was shocked. I told her that in the future she could expect this as a regular occurrence, and I kept it up every morning.”
“This changed attitude of mine brought more happiness into our home in the two months since I started than there was during the last year.”
“As I leave for my office, I greet the elevator operator in the apartment house with a ‘Good morning’ and a smile; I greet the doorman with a smile. I smile at the cashier in the subway booth when I ask for change. As I stand on the floor of the Stock Exchange, I smile at people who until recently never saw me smile.”
“I soon found that everybody was smiling back at me, I treat those who come to me with complaints or grievances in a cheerful manner, I smile as I listen to them and I find that adjustments are accomplished much easier. I find that smiles are bringing me dollars, many dollars every day.”
“I share my office with another broker. One of his clerks is a likable young chap, and I was so elated about the results I was getting that I told him recently about my new philosophy of human relations. He then confessed that when I first came to share my office with his firm he thought me a terrible grouch—and only recently changed his mind. He said I was really human when I smiled.”
“I have also eliminated criticism from my system. I give appreciation and praise now instead of condemnation. I have stopped talking about what I want. I am now trying to see the other person’s viewpoint. And these things have literally revolutionized my life. I am a totally different man, a happier man, a richer man, richer in friendships and happiness—the only things that matter much after all.”
You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy. Here is the way the psychologist and philosopher William James put it:
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there…
Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing the same thing; both may have about an equal amount of money and prestige—and yet one may be miserable and the other happy. Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I have seen just as many happy faces among the poor peasants toiling with their primitive tools in the devastating heat of the tropics as I have seen in air-conditioned offices in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
“There is nothing either good or bad,” said Shakespeare, “but thinking makes it so.”
Abe Lincoln once remarked that “most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be”. He was right.
Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies.