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Make it a toothy grin, Ricky Gervais-style.

When you smile, don’t hold back.  Show as many teeth as you can.  See if the observer can count at least half your teeth when you beam at them.  A smile is infectious.  But rather than a nasty virus, you’re spreading mirth and merriment.*  And if you can smile even in the worst of circumstances, then you’ve truly mastered the secret to a happier life.

And don’t worry if you don’t have perfect teeth.* Many celebrities have incorporated their crooked smiles into eight-figure incomes. Kirsten Dunst, Steve Buscemi, and Ricky Gervais come to mind. “Are you havin’ a laugh?” They sure are!

Ricky Gervais: 'Before The Office I never tried hard at anything' | Ricky Gervais | The Guardian

*Even if you have poor dental hygiene, people will still return your smile, though they may back up a step or two. We recommend brushing and flossing and visiting the dentist twice a year.

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Bowling for birds.

Many birds actually enjoy bowling. You don’t see them at the local lanes much, because the owners of American bowling facilities don’t rent bowling shoes in sizes that small.  The key idea is this: no matter what rules or limitations are imposed on you, there’s an inventive way around that blockage to get some satisfaction, 99.9% of the time. Everybody should be able to engage in the kind of fun they want. But you might have to be willing to compromise, and participate without shoes. A refreshing change that airs out your feet. Win-win.

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Think like a Martian.

What if you weren’t confined to normal, safe, everyday ordinary thoughts? Maybe you’d be willing to take some risks and do something dangerous or something extraordinary.

Take Elon Musk: he spent $100 million dollars of his own money on developing rocket technology aimed at colonizing Mars in his lifetime. Better yet, he convinced his friends and the US government to pony up an additional $900 million to help build his new generation of SPACE-X rockets. Is Elon crazy? Yes. Will he get to Mars? Also yes.  There is no stopping Elon. Because to do something amazing, sometimes you have to leave all the usual dull Earthly rules and restrictions behind you and think like a Martian.

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All dreams are good. Especially the bad ones.

Sleep science is all the rage, along with bespoke mattress companies, open-cell, poly-foam pillow design, and the promise that melatonin will lure you gently into that good night, minus the hallucination and hangover of pharmaceuticals.  Yet your subconscious couldn’t care less about the new sleep sound machine you’ve configured to “relaxing rainforest.”

Once you start snoozing and the heavy REMs arrive, the dreams come forth in bunches.  Naturally, you’d prefer to be uncovering a treasure chest filled with gold doubloons, seducing the fairest of them all, and waving from an open convertible as the ticker tape alights on your shoulders along the Canyon of Heroes.

But think about it: waking up from pleasant dreams into the cold light of reality is much more difficult than bolting upright after experiencing a twisted nightmare. As you wipe the sweat from your temples and realize you haven’t actually lost a limb to a tiger shark, or been fondled by your father, you can be grateful that the day ahead won’t involve a flock of purple vultures feasting on your intestines.

So celebrate all dreams, especially the god-awful ones.  They can serve to give you a new lease on life.  After all, you’re not standing naked in front of your classmates from grade school minus the speech you were supposed to memorize.*

*This can actually happen if you don’t remember to dress properly in the morning. Please make sure you belt your trousers securely.

Bonus suggestion:  Don’t try to repress undesired thoughts before bedtime. They’re more likely to find their way into your dreams that night.  This according to a study at Goethe University, Frankfurt. 

Illustration: Dream interpretation of birth.

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Enjoy your greatest success after death.

The artist Paul Gauguin achieved his greatest success long after death, so who knows, maybe you will too.

At the beginning of 1903, Gauguin was living on an island in Polynesia and engaged in a campaign designed to expose the incompetence of the island’s gendarmes, in particular Jean-Paul Claverie, for taking the side of the natives directly in a case involving the alleged drunkenness of a group of them. Claverie, however, escaped censure. At the beginning of February, Gauguin wrote to the governor, François Picquenot, alleging corruption by one of Claverie’s subordinates. Picquenot investigated the allegations but could not substantiate them. Claverie responded by filing a charge of libel against Gauguin, who was subsequently fined 500 francs and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. Gauguin immediately filed an appeal in Papeete and set about raising the funds to travel to plead before the judge. At this time he was nearly penniless, very weak and in great physical pain. He resorted  to using morphine. He died suddenly on the morning of 8 May 1903.

Nobody thought too much of his passing, but one hundred and ten years later, Gauguin’s painting Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) sold for $295,000,000 to the museums of Qatar, as one of the most expensive art objects ever. Gauguin would be tickled pink.

Who knows what you’ll be worth after you are dead?

 

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