A cheerful person is always more disposed to be
happy than to be miserable. He looks at the bright side of things, and thus
often derives pleasure from circumstances which would depress the spirits of an
ordinary man. This being the case, to say that cheerfulness promotes happiness,
is as much a truism as to say that justice leads to the doing of just acts, and
that truthfulness prevents men from telling lies. We may go further, and say that
cheerfulness promotes happiness more than anything else in the world. The
cheerful beggar is far happier than the melancholy millionaire. As sources of
happiness, neither wealth. Nor fame, nor beauty, nor power, nay, not even
health itself-can for a moment he compared with a cheerful disposition. As a
rule, health and cheerfulness are associated together in the same persons; but,
in the rare cases when this is not so, we find that health fails to secure happiness,
and that a confirmed invalid may be happy in spite of weakness and bodily pain.
There are many delicate women, condemned by that seemed a cruel fate to’°’ pass
their uses on a sofa who have, by their cheerful endurance of the inevitable,
so far conquered fortune as to be happy themselves and make all around them
happy. So true it is that our happiness depends on ourselves. That is on our
minds, far more than on the gifts of fortune.
Another great advantage of cheerfulness is that it
enables a man to do better work and prevents him from being easily exhausted.
This truth is well expressed by the homely words of the Shakespearean song that
tell us how, “A merry heart goes all the day, the said tires in a mile.” The laborer,
who whistles over his work, goes home less tired and can work harder than another
whom, as he labors, broods over real or imaginary troubles. This is also true
of intellectual work, which is seriously-impaired by depression of spirits.
Therefore, as the cheerful man is happy himself, and by his cheerfulness adds
to the happiness of all who come into contact with him, and in addition is
enabled to work all the better because of his cheer-fullness it is a plan duty
for everybody to do his best to cultivate a cheerful spirit.
But some will say that cheerfulness is a gift of
nature, and cannot be attained by any efforts of the will. There is a certain amount
of truth in this objection. It is true that some men are horn with cheerful
dispositions, and others with a melancholy temperament. Nevertheless it is
possible for the cheerful person to make him more cheerful, and for the
melancholy man to diminish his tendency to depression of spirits.
The two best means for the attainment of this
desirable end are plenty of congenial work, and attention to the rules of
health although, as was said above, it is possible for the healthy to indulge
in melancholy it is almost always found that improvement of health promotes
cheerfulness. A very large part of the melancholy in the world is due to
preventable. The connection between cheerfulness and regular occupation is not
quite so close, but experience of life shows that the greatest depression of
spirits is to be found among those who either won’t work or unfortunately
cannot get work. There if we wish to be cheerful, we must be careful of our
health and avoid idleness. By so doing we shall become more cheerful and the
effect will react on the cause; for us hall finds that in its turn our
cheerfulness will improve our health and the quality of our work.