Smile: To Help and Not to Hurt

So many of the posts here on the Legal Examiner center on tragedy . Deadly car collisions, Oil Spills and all sorts of dangerous products. It's just great to see a study about how your happiness can be helped by the happiness of others.

Basically, that happiness can spread. That it's contagious “There’s kind of an emotional quiet riot that occurs and takes on a life of its own, that people themselves may be unaware of. Emotions have a collective existence — they are not just an individual phenomenon.” said Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and social scientist at Harvard Medical School and an author of the study, to be published Friday in BMJ, a British journal.

While there are a number of questions about if a neighbor's happiness is actually more affective than a spouse's, or if the happiness from down the block can really resonate. It's clear that happiness can spread.

So do what you can this week to cheer up the neighborhood and even the whole state. JUST SMILE.