LIVING LIFE : It pays to be cheerful

It is not uncommon to find a fellow slumped down on his chair, wearing a frown and complaining about how hard life is and how unfair the world is specifically to them. They spend their day worrying about tomorrow and how it will turn out, about that elusive job that seems destined for everyone else except them and their general bad luck. What they never realize is that by brooding and fretting over this or the other hurdle they face instead of being optimistic, trying to find a solution for every problem (yes, there is one for EVERY problem), they are actually causing or inviting more hurdles or problems to come their way. If at all it were, there is no benefit in pouring pity on oneself or trying to seek people’s sympathy instead of genuine help. Instead always wear a smile even when you have no reason to do so, for your own sake. It helps an awful lot to be cheerful. Professor James, in his Talks to Teachers, says “Thus, the sovereign voluntary path of cheerful-ness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can. In other words, to feel brave, act as if you were brave, use all your will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.” Doctors have time and again told us that if we are too scared of being sick, we fall sick. If we spend all our time worrying and thinking about sickness, our minds take cue and actually manifest the sickness. In some ‘miracle’ cases, Patients who will themselves to heal get cured even when medicine has failed. If we are constantly worried about poverty or joblessness, our brains will make us poor or jobless. We can will our mind to do things to our bodies, good or bad, so there is no use thinking sad, feeling sorry for oneself because your mind will begin to feel sorry for you as well. People who are sad have problems not showing it on the outside but if they struggle to put on a smile, perhaps the next one will become natural. In The Effect of Physical attitude, it is said that the normal bodily expression for cheerfulness is an erect spinal column, the head well poised, and a general slightly upward direction of the eyes. This very position which cheerfulness would naturally give to the body will itself, if purposely assumed and maintained, produce cheerfulness. In fact, the mental effect resulting from this attitude is such that it is impossible for a person to continue it for half an hour in walking or any other physical activity and remain mentally depressed. As evidenced by medical research it pays to be cheerful, so why not wear that smile in doom and gloom, even if there is no other reason to? I wish you a cheerful Sunday. kelviod@yahoo.com