Mr Smiley and Mr Long-Face were two men I met more than 25 years ago.

I still remember them clearly. Not their names. I don’t even remember whether I knew their names in the first place. I don’t know other details about their lives either.

But I remember very clearly the expressions on their faces - especially the sharp contrast between the two.

The contrast was striking because the two men worked right beside each other; they often stood right beside each other. They were lift operators at a building where I worked, so I saw them almost daily. There were only two lifts in that building, and just these two lift operators.

That was why they stood out. If I had seen them regularly among a lot more people, say, in a bus or at a food centre, I might not have noticed that they presented almost the two extreme faces of human emotion.

The short man presented a face that was always happy, always smiling. He smiled so much, he had rows of wrinkles across his forehead, plus more wrinkles flaring out from the corners of his eyes.

The tall man had a long face to match the rest of his body, a face that expressed sadness and gloom.

Needless to say, Mr Smiley was the more talkative chap. Yet I cannot remember anything that he said. Must have been the usual pleasantries like "How are you?", "Nice weather!"... that sort of thing. I cannot remember.

Mr Smiley never said anything memorable.

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Cry from birth

But Mr Long-Face made a statement that stays deeply ingrained in my mind. I don’t remember the context of the conversation, but Mr Long-Face one day said: "The moment a baby is born, it cries!"

How true. How sad.

The fact that a baby cries at birth is not a sad thing. It could well be just the body’s natural way of activating the lungs or the vocal cords. I am sure there is a valid reason for babies to cry.

What is sad is the view, expressed by Mr Long-Face, that we are all doomed to cry; we are doomed from birth to be sad.

What’s even sadder is that Mr Long-Face’s viewpoint may well be correct.

Just look around you. In one day, depending on where you are and what you do, you may see between a few and a few thousand people. How many Smiley’s do you see? Think of all the people you have known in your life. How many are - or at least appear to be - always happy and always smiling?

And how many have long faces, gloomy faces, worried faces, angry faces, unhappy faces, sad faces....

To be sure, the Smileys of this world do exist. Another that comes to mind was a man I once saw while driving through a part of town called Little India. On Sunday evenings, tens of thousands of workers from India and Bangladesh gather there and the place is packed.

From these tens of thousands, one caught my eye. He was on the grass, lying sideways with one hand supporting his head. His face was glowing with joy.

But do not count Smileys among those whose jobs require them to appear happy. As I write this, I recall one girl at a pub I once visited. Like her colleagues, she appeared happy enough, smiling, laughing and making merry. A short while later, I saw her sitting alone outside, her eyes red, swollen and teary.

Do not count all the people who teach about happiness either - the authors of inspirational books, the priests and preachers, the people who lead gospel rallies and meditation retreats. Some of them may well be truly happy. Others aren’t.

I know because I used to be an unhappy teacher of happiness. I used to publish a newsletter called "The Good Life - Nature’s path to health, healing and happiness."

After eight years and 61 issues, I stopped because the project was losing money and because I was not happy doing it. (It could very well have been that I lost money because I was not happy, even though on the surface it seems the other way around.)

While I was at it, I had written a number of articles about how diet, physical activity and mental attitudes can all affect our emotions and contribute to happiness. I had conveyed concepts from Traditional Chinese Medicine about how sadness and depression are brought on by weak lungs, while happiness and joy stem from a healthy heart.

There is truth and validity in these ideas about happiness, especially the idea that happiness does not depend on getting things - not a job, or a car, a house, a wife, children or grandchildren, not money, not freedom, not even love.

It does not depend on what happens to us, but instead on how we react to the things that happen. The idea that happiness comes from within.

But why must we learn such ideas in the first place? Do any of us need to learn how to be sad? Is there more to it, I wonder?

Let’s consider again Mr Smiley and Mr Long-Face.

Both do exactly the same work, in exactly the same place. Both meet the same mix of pleasant and unpleasant people entering the lift. Both work for the same boss, who may be a nice or a nasty man, who knows? Perhaps if I had asked them about their boss, I would have gotten two opposite answers?

Yet one of them is happy. And I can bet my life that Mr Smiley had not read any books, nor attended any seminars or spiritual retreats, on how to be happy.

He is just that way. Just as Mr Long-Face is also that way.