Six: Cheerfulness

A good attitude.  Well adjusted.  Agreeable.  These characteristics are demonstrated by the general practice of cheerfulness.  The tone we portray during interaction with others has more import than we realize.  We are attracted to cheerful people.  We feel better when we are cheerful.  However, we don’t always feel that way.

A heavy schedule makes it hard to be cheerful.  Difficult people to deal with, skipping lunch, a gray day full of mood-suppressing positive ions in the air (negative ions improve mood), there are so many reasons, large and small that we cannot summon a cheerful thought. What to do?

William James, psychologist and philosopher wrote, “Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if cheerfulness be lost, is to set up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already here.”  If we adopt the attitude we wish to portray, if we become actors in our daily interactions, the cheerfulness becomes reality.  It’s personal power of suggestion.  And it gets easier.  The positive effects of cheerfulness, the higher regard from other people, the spring in your step, reinforces the forced attitude.  A little mental discipline can have a significant return.

As we think, so it shall be.

Happiness