Cheerfulness is a personal outlook that is within our control. Despite all the adversity that we may experience it is possible to be cheerful if you strive to maintain that state of mind.
- No it's not. By the time I was 16 or 17, fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement already dominated my life completely. Expressions of love literally make me feel physically sick (yes, as in nauseous). -- TheerasakPhotha
This doesn't mean to maintain a state of mindless glee. Still, it is possible to choose to be part of the solution and be cheerful as you work on it. Try it!
Historical note: Polyanna's name is often used as a synonym for said mindless glee. Her character was not about this.
PracticeRandomKindnessAndSenselessActsOfBeauty?
VisualizeWhirledPeas? - A bumper sticker I once saw. It made me laugh.
- I hate that bumper sticker. My favorite bumper sticker goes: "Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. BE EVIL!" I'm reminded of reading those Amar Chitra Katha comic books where there's some kind of demon who just sits around and meditate under a tree for years upon years, acquires something a little less than omnipotence, then goes around leaving the burning remnants of villages and towns behind him. I want to be like that. -- tp
I like this topic and it is something I am striving for. There is a great quote in one of the lessons in OgMandino?'s TheGreatestSalesmanInTheWorld? "And how will I speak. I will laud mine enemies and they will become friends; I will encourage my friends and they will become brothers. Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; never will I scratch for reasons to gossip. When I am tempted to criticize I will bite on my tongue; when I am moved to praise I will shout from the roofs."
-- sg
- "I will laud mine enemies, and they will treat me like a sack of dirt anyway; I will manipulate people whose caprice could turn against me at any moment so that they will continue to be my 'friends'. Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; that way no one will know when I am about to pwn him. When I am tempted to criticize, I will do it loudly and ridicule his beliefs as well, though at a safe distance; when I can't take it anymore, I will hurl myself off the roof." -- tp
DaleCarnegie stresses, "Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
BeExcellentToEachOther? ... and, PartyOnDudes?!!! -- (BillAndTed?)
"Reality is subjective, and there's an unenlightened tendency in this culture to regard something as "important" only if it's sober and severe. Sure and still you're right about your Cheerful Dumb, only they're not so much happy as lobotomized. But your Gloomy Smart are just as ridiculous. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. You are truly happy people, which is to say, you are people who truly like yourselves and don't think about yourselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence." -- TomRobbins
- I consider happiness a kind of mental turd-polishing. You keep polishing the turd meticulously in the hopes that it will turn into a diamond. What you are left with is a smushed turd that smells like polish. FWIW, one of the principal reasons I adopted a realistic worldview (you might call it unhappiness), is because of the lives of other people. I suppose you don't think about people dying from famines and child soldiers carrying around rifles that are longer than they are tall. I do. But I stopped giving to charity or doing anything positive becaus I realized it was futile. -- tp
- I say all you are doing is choosing something to be. Happy. Sad. They are one and the same. It's simply easier for you depressed types to say, "I'm unhappy, life sucks." It removes a lot of impetus to act, beyond that lovely level of bitching about life. HL
- Perhaps you haven't come in contact with clinical depression. One can't choose to be happy. What one can only do though is be optimistic. -- mfukar
Be Cheerful