Look at yourself in a mirror or other reflective surface such as shiny metal or a pond. Be careful with ponds, you could fall in or get stuck there staring at yourself forever, wasting away until you become a flower or some such. This is to be avoided.
Note the current state of your appearance. Do you look moody? Do you look terrible? Ascertain if you must ask yourself if you look terrible or if you already know the answer.
Begin with your posture. You must hold yourself in a relaxed manner without thinking about it. If you are thinking about your posture, you won’t be able to shape yourself naturally into a joyful position and may appear wooden and flat.
Try to relax your shoulders. Hold them too close to your ears and you look stressed, too far forward and you look defeated. Try to pull your shoulders down and back. Not too far back or you can move right past relaxed into aggressive, which can sometimes feel joyful for certain people. Ascertain if you feel joyfully aggressive. Joyful aggression occurs only during that knife edge of a moment when aggression turns into action. Another knife farther and you begin to comprehend the consequences of your aggressive action which just plain takes all the fun out of it. Comprehend the consequences of your aggressive actions. Think a few knives ahead. Do not allow your comprehension of your aggressive actions to appear on your face. Try to go limp. Useful tip: don’t stab anybody. It is difficult to look joyful whilst stabbing somebody unless you have had a good deal of practice.
Raise your chin a good 20 degrees higher. Too far and you look judgmental whist opening yourself to unforeseen judgement from others regarding the contents of your nostrils. Think about the contents of your nostrils. Blow your nose. Then wash your hands. Then blow your nose again. Do you have one of those nose hair clipper things? Get a nose hair clipper thing.
Become aware of your facial features. Looking joyful happens in the mouth, cheeks, eyes, and even the bridge of the nose. For some, the ears. Try to smile with your ears. Some people can. Ask people to show you. Move the corners of your mouth up, perhaps show a little teeth. Not too much teeth! You are not at the dentist.
If you are at the dentist, show your teeth.
Raise the corners of your mouth. Aim for the letter U from a viewer’s vantage. Do not aim for the letter U from your own vantage as you will send your mouth in the wrong direction and move past moody to sad clown. Whilst a small subset of the population feels joyful at the sight of a sad clown, somebody must or they wouldn’t have sad clowns, can’t imagine who, your goal is to look joyful to others, not to attempt make others look joyful with a display of your own despair. Try to make your mouth form the suggestion of a letter U but do not achieve the letter U, mouths do not stretch that far naturally. Maybe in some fonts.
If your lips move in the proper direction, your cheeks will ball up under your eyes toward the sides of your face. Maintain some softness here. Imagine pumping air into a beach ball. keep the ball soft, pliable and not round. Enough roundness for a perfect ball and this will be too much pressure to maintain causing some physical pain. I don’t need to tell you what happens to a beach ball when you over fill it. Let it be a warning.
Squint your eyes slightly. Too much and you will move past happy and right into myopic.
Become aware of your eyebrows. Raised up works, but you must raise both of them or you will look skeptical or devious. Do not point your eyebrows down and toward the middle or you will reveal your inner rage or at minimum discover you have resting bitch face. Recall if somebody ever told you your face would freeze like that. If it did freeze like that, you have resting bitch face.
When raising your eyebrows, do not contract them inward or you will appear to be worried or in pain. Ascertain if you are in pain. Acertain if your pain is emotional or physical. If physical, try not to moan in pain or breathe too heavily or you will look joyfully deranged. This is the joy of fully and completely no longer caring in any kind of way about keeping it together for yourself or for any other damn person you’ll do what you want how you want and let anybody stare. You don’t even care. Unfortunately, this blessed state of ultimate joy typically does not look joyful.
You are not looking joyful for a reason. Ascertain the nature of your mood. Are you sad, irritated, wronged? If wronged, exact revenge. Possible methods of revenge: unleash a plague upon your enemy. Possible plagues: solicitors, ants, styrofoam peanuts, relations, glitter. If you succeed in your revenge you will naturally look joyful and perhaps even feel joyful, but it will be a moody joy.
