“Smile, it’s not so bad.”
– Mr. Tyler
This was a math teacher in our high school. With his brush-cut hair and imposing stature, I always thought of Mr. Tyler as something like a prison guard.
But there were days when I would be walking around with my regular face, which doesn’t look happy by default, and he would see me and say “Smile, it’s not so bad.”
I don’t know how many kids he said that to over his career at that school, but I know that for me, it sometimes did make my day better. I may have actually managed to smile, or at least grimace in the attempt.
And it made me think maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy. Turned out he was a good math teacher, too.
