Scholarship Contest Winners 2016

A big congratulations to our three Graf Orthodontics scholarship winners! We are proud to invest in your futures and know you will go far.

Here are the winning essays!

The Power of a Smile

By Autumn K

"We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do." This is one of the quotes that Mother Teresa is widely known for. She believed a smile was an expression of love and a precious gift. Mother Teresa was a Roman Catholic nun. She concentrated her efforts on helping the poor and needy. She was given various amounts of awards for her charitable deeds including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Mother Teresa founded an organization called the Missionaries of Charity who devoted attentions to those in great need. Mother Teresa knew that there was great power in a smile. So how can such a common and simple thing such as a smile resonate so much power? The truth is, smiling has a huge effect on many vital aspects of human life. Smiling has an immense impact on physical health, mental health, and the opinions of those around.

It is not unreasonably surprising that smiling directs our physical health. Scientists have found that when face muscles move during a smile, endorphins are released. Endorphins make us feel happy and relaxed. Smiling literally makes us feel good. Specialists say that smiling makes us feel better than if we had just eaten a bar of chocolate. It doesn’t matter if the smile is fake or real, endorphins are released either way. Not only do endorphins promote happiness, but endorphins also help us to feel less pain when we are injured. Smiling, in itself, is a natural pain killer medicine. This is why some people naturally try to laugh off pain. Another way that smiling shapes our physical health, is that it reduces the amount of cortisol being released. Cortisol is the hormone of stress and anxiety. Therefore, smiling reduces stress and negative feelings. Another health benefit of smiling is that it actually helps one to live longer. On average, someone who smiles will live seven years longer than if they didn’t smile. In a study about professional baseball players, researchers found that the athletes who smiled on their baseball cards accounted for thirty-five percent of the total variability in the player’s survival chances. There is also evidence that smiling reduces blood pressure. Unarguably, smiling improves physical health.

Smiling also improves mental health. It can help you think more positively about yourself. It then starts a wonderful cycle of smiling, thinking positive thoughts, and then smiling again. Not only is smiling good for self happiness, but it strongly affects the health of people around. Smiling is contagious. It is very hard to hold back a smile when looking at someone else who is smiling. When you smile at someone, it brightens their day and makes them feel better about themself. I remember one day I was feeling lonely and despondent. I was walking through the halls of my high school looking down at my sorry shoes, with nobody but myself for company. I was reflecting on all the bad things about myself, and in effect, making myself feel worse. I was a tremendous bundle of miserableness radiating shafts of negativity. As I walked through the hall towards the library, I looked up into the faces of the people streaming past me on their way to class. I expected everyone to ignore my gaze and walk by without any notice of me. I was right for three painful seconds. Then, a cheerful looking girl caught my eye and flashed me a pretty smile. Immediately after seeing her spectacular smile, a rush of happiness fluttered through my very core. I felt a smile of my own make its way to my face. In an instant, my day had suddenly changed from downcast to jovial. Her smile was meant simply as an exchange of greeting to a stranger in the hall. To me, her smile was an acknowledgement of my importance as a fellow human being. It melted my sour attitude like butter on a frying pan. Not only will smiling improve your spirits, but there is a strong correlation between smiling and success in marriage. Psychologists performed an experiment in which they rated smiles in a yearbook by strength. They investigated whether the people with stronger smiles had success in their marriage or not. They found that only eleven percent of strong smilers had been divorced, while thirty-one percent of people who had a weaker smile had the experience of a broken marriage. Smiling definitely produces a healthy mentality.

The way someone views another person is through their facial expressions. When I see someone smiling, I am more drawn to them because they look happy. I feel like I would be welcome as their friend. I can also talk more easily to people who smile because they look more involved in the conversation, and I feel encouraged to express my own opinions. I am not alone in how I feel about people who smile. In business sales, people are more likely to close a deal if the salesman is smiling. A smiling salesman increases the trust of their customers. Scientists have copiously studied the effect of making a sale by using a smile. They discovered that there is a strong correlation between positive business outcomes and smiling. Scientists refer to this circumstance as the emotional contagion. Smiling also crosses the language and age boundary. We do not need to understand what someone is saying in order to know that they are happy. An old grandma may not understand the ways of teenagers in today’s world, but a smile means the same thing in both generations. It connects both worlds as if there were no age difference. The same phenomenon applies to language differences. Facial expressions such as smiling tell us that the person likes us, that they are encouraging us, or that they are simply happy. Smiling is a big key in communication and in influencing the opinions of others.

Smiling is over all a desirable instrument. It greatly impacts physical health, mental health, and the perspectives of other people. The power of a smile extends further than the business deals, the extra seven years of life, and the successful marriage. It goes beyond anything we can imagine, and as Mother Teresa once said, “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do." 

The Power of a Smile

By Carly A

            I made my way into the middle of the group, turned up my music, and cleared my head. I hardly missed a day of training during the last few months so I knew I could easily do this. The gun fired and I started to move my legs. Although I was nervous at the beginning, just simply smiling helped me start out my run on a positive note. I smiled as I thought about how much work I had put in to get to this point, and how I soon would feel the accomplishment of finishing. I began finding my place in the midst of all the other runners, and reminded myself that I had trained for this moment for months. The first few miles flew by with people cheering me on along the way. I knew when I signed up for this half marathon that it would take quite a bit of hard work, but I hoped that it would prove worth it in the end. As I approached mile nine, I slowly started hitting the dreaded wall. At this point in the race, running up the hill straight ahead seemed impossible, and I felt that I could not make it. Again, I smiled as I thought about having a medal placed around my neck when I crossed the finish line, and that motivated me to keep going. As I approached the last quarter mile, there were spectators lining the sides of the course. They all smiled at me as they encouraged me for the last stretch of my race. As they called my name when I crossed the finish line, I felt the great accomplishment of finally reaching my goal. I always knew that if I gave my full effort, it would pay off.

            But as wonderful as my feeling of accomplishment felt, nothing compared to seeing my mom waiting for me at the end with a huge smile on her face, congratulating me for my hard work. Seeing her reassuring grin gave me the added confidence in myself and helped me to fully appreciate this big achievement. We waited together for a few minutes before my sister came running through the finish line with my dad right behind her. As we all caught our breath and walked over to an empty table to sit down, we all looked at each other with big smiles on our faces realizing what we had just accomplished. All of those months of waking up early to train, increasing our mileage every few days, trying out energy gels, and icing our muscles all became worth it when we crossed the finish line. Beaming, we stood together and smiled for a picture. I kept repeating to my dad and sister, “We did it!” The feeling of achieving something you have been working a long time for beats almost every other feeling, especially when someone you look up to and respect gives you a smile of approval, just as my mother did.

            As I look back on my accomplishments, my past successes have motivated me to do my best in all aspects of life. When I first started training for the half marathon, it seemed almost too challenging. I am not much of a runner so I did not look forward to it at all in the first few weeks. Yet the more I worked at it, the more I improved. The more I improved, the more I enjoyed getting up early to run. Even just putting a simple smile on my face increased my desire to go out and run, and helped me get through the harder running days. Sometimes we get so focused on an end goal that we fail to realize how important the journey can be to our success. But by changing our attitude and thinking positively, we are able to achieve so much more than we could otherwise.

            Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” If we focus on the positive and go through life with a smile on our face, we can accomplish whatever we set our mind to. But no matter what reward we earn, no reward is more powerful than an approving smile from someone you love and respect.

When asked what they first notice about someone else, most people will answer with “their smile.” If a smile is the number one thing people notice, it is important to smile around everyone you meet. Smiling shows friendliness, happiness, and approval, and indicates a positive disposition. They say that just a smile can make someone’s day. If just a simple can turn somebody’s whole day around, that is pretty powerful. Walking down the halls of high school, I notice that when I smile at someone or someone smiles at me, it gives me an extra boost of happiness and confidence to get through the rest of the day, just through that simple gesture. If we have the power it takes to make other people happy just by turning up the corners of our mouth, we should always look to use that power to make someone’s day better. Because a smile of approval means so much to us and makes us feel valued and accepted, like my mom’s smile as I finished my race, we should smile all the time, because we never know how much it can help someone else. When life gets difficult, if we just simply smile we can have a more positive outlook for how everything will turn out. Before my race started, I felt nervous, not sure what to expect. But by starting out with a smile on my face, I was able to enjoy the run and appreciate the race that much more. A smile is a powerful thing. Whether we smile to make someone else’s day or help us improve our outlook on life events, a simple smile can go a long way.

The Power to Reach Across Divides

By Gaby B

My step-mom is from Thailand and throughout the years we have struggled to have a good relationship due to natural divides. The major barriers between the two of us are the differences in our cultures and backgrounds. She is soft spoken and submissive, whereas I am often loud and opinionated. Due to being raised in different cultures, not only do we have different expectations of certain situations and interactions, but we also have different personalities and perspectives. Perspective plays a significant role in how we each see the world and I find that we often have different perspectives on both unique and routine situations. Despite the barrier of mine and my step-mom’s natural differences, we do our best to show each other our love. Many of the most vivid memories I have when I connected with my step-mom include when we made eye contact and simply smiled at one another. If only for a moment, it feels to me as if a smile has the power to break down any and all barriers between us. Throughout my life this lesson has been a significant one; smiles truly can and do break down barriers between individuals and let us reach across all divides.    

Throughout our lives we will face experiences that make us feel out of place or even foreign. There will always be barriers that divide one individual from another, one group from another, or one culture from another; however, some of these barriers are more evident than others. From speaking a different language to being in a different high school clique, we are surrounded by and constantly placed in situations that create natural divides. They are simply inevitable. Many times when faced with such a divide, one may shy away, too intimidated to find a solution to break past the barrier, or perhaps not willing to put forth the effort.

To further illustrate one common example of this could be found in the hallway of a high school. Two girls in different social circles, with different interests, different friends, different personalities, and seemingly nothing in common pass each other in the hallway. These natural barriers divide the two girls, nothing that they are at fault for, but a barrier nevertheless. Many times the two girls go on their own way, ignoring the other, but in a rare circumstance one may choose to break the barrier. She smiles softly at the other as they pass and receives a smile back. No words were exchanged, not much was seemingly changed, however, something was now different.

A little boy from a small village in Argentina gapes in awe as he watches a group of American tourists pass by his humble home. The tourists are in such wonder themselves that they glance past the boy without a second thought. But one tourist sees the boy and considers all the differences between them: they look different, they have different personalities, different social and economic circumstances, and they speak different languages. But the tourist stops and smiles. The boy feels his heart warm and instinctively smiles back. No words were spoken, no gifts were given, however, something was now different.

In the busy streets of New York City recognition of others often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the city. People coming, people going. Bumping of shoulders without an apology or even a glance. Taxi rides stripped of any friendly communication. Always in a hurry to get from one place to another, worried about the past or the future and not always seeing the situations and people of the present. Individuals in circumstances like these are not only separated by natural divides but they are often building walls subconsciously. A friendly smile offers a moment to share happiness and love with others. Even in the busiest of cities, finding the time to smile at one another can break down the walls which have been built and can begin to open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. No words need to be spoken, no time consuming act committed, yet something would be different.

William Arthur Ward, a famous American author and poet, declared, “A warm smile is the universal language of kindness”. We go day to day often not recognizing the power we each hold to reach across divides, and sometimes we even neglect to notice that there are divides at all. We remain content in the world we live. Content to remain. Content to be unchanged. But if we choose to remain unchanged we will not grow nor become better than we were yesterday. Change comes when we reach out of our comfort zones and learn to show love to others. The universal gift and tool to change and to reach across divides is a smile. Simple and easy, yet so very powerful. I believe we tend to underestimate the power a smile holds – the power to bring joy and light into the lives of those around us, including our own, without much effort at all.

Not only does a smile have the power to quickly reach across divides into the lives of others, but it allows us to reach across divides within ourselves, to break down barriers we may have built around and inside of ourselves. When we truly smile at others we are sending them the gift of joy. We are sending them the gift of comfort. We are sending them the gift of love.

Smiling is easy, yet a true smile can make a world of difference to those around you and yourself. Just like I have noticed in my personal life and relationships (such as the example with my step-mom) a smile can change a moment, it can change a memory, and perhaps even more. Smiles are infinite. Smiles are universal. Smiles have the power to reach across divides and if we let them, smiles can change the world.