The worth of a smile
As a young kid, I really loved a Japanese series called Candy. It was a kind of Animé (although we didn't really call this Animé in the 70s) and the main character was an orphan girl who became fond of a boy, the ''Prince'', and who once told her, as she was crying (because she was going through some hardship and injustices, as many orphans do), that she was more beautiful when she laughed. This line stayed with me my whole life after that. Due to the tension between the need to emancipate and to stay close to family, discomfort towards puberty, peer pressure, embarrassment towards our parents, or heartbreak after a first love, adolescence is not particularly a time when we feel like in a smiling mode in a consistent way. At least it was not my case. Even though I am a generally joyful and positive person (who sure has her moments of grumpiness too !), in my teenage years, when around certain people, I didn't feel like faking a smile. So it was particularly ann...