Deciding To Smile Anyway

Though he’s never spoken a word to me, his presence is a source of daily inspiration.

He’s been sitting in my garden for a few years now. Indifferent to the rain, snow, heat, or the cold, he just sits there. Smiling and laughing, without a care in the world.

I guess it’s pretty easy to not have a care in the world when you’re six inches tall and made out of concrete. And that’s exactly what he is, my cracked yellow Buddha, a small piece of statuary I found on a dusty shelf at a local closeout store. Cracked, because he’s been exposed to years of wet winter weather. Yellow, because I painted him in a failed attempt to protect his porous surface from the wet winter weather. 

There’s something wonderfully imperfect about a cracked, yellow Buddha. Maybe that’s what makes it relatable. Maybe that’s where the inspiration comes from. 

Despite the cracks and a really bad paint job, the smile is ever present, no matter the weather. That smile often challenges me to look more closely at how I react to adverse situations, my unmet expectations, the storms of my life. I’m not made of concrete, and I certainly have my own cracks. But in those inevitable moments of adversity and disappointment, am I able to adjust my perspective and rise above the reasons I tell myself I shouldn’t smile and decide to do so anyway?

Life happens. And there are no wrong ways to feel about anything that does happen. 

But how we respond to what happens? 

That’s always up to us. 

A cracked yellow Buddha reminds me of this often.