Be cheerful, be happy

Cheerfulness is a quality, which everyone likes. One who possesses it becomes a magnet of goodwill. Cheerfulness comes from a sense of well being & contentment. It's a sterling quality but it doesn't always stay with us. Many circumstances & events steal our happiness & joy. We make mistakes, we worry we become agitated & sorrowful. Thoughts of envy, jealousy, anger & hatred enters our minds & our cheerfulness vanishes.

The way to cheerfulness, the way to inner contentment is quite simple. All we need to do is to focus our attention on the good qualities that are displayed around us.

Leave the bad qualities aside. When we see the bad qualities & defects of others, we harbor negative thoughts, thus poisoning our minds. These thoughts are the source of unwanted actions, resulting in undue sorrow & loss of cheerfulness.

When we see only good qualities our minds will be free from negative & poisonous thoughts. Our thoughts will be pure & our actions elevated, bringing w/ them joy, contentment, happiness & cheerfulness.

Some people feel sad & upset over trivial matters whereas there are others who stay cheerful even with petty things. Nobody else but we ourselves can decide whether we remain cheerful or sad.

Once one person who always remained happy & gay was asked as to what was the secret of his being ever cheerful. He replied that when he got up every morning he had two options either to stay cheerful or to sulk & he always opted for cheerful & hence remained smiling & happy.

Abraham Lincoln had once said: " A person is only that such cheerful or sad which he makes himself." If one wants to remain gloomy or sad, then he will always be so sad & feel that nothing works, nothing is all right & everything is useless.

However, if he feels that everything is all right, all is well, he is happy & life is enjoyable then he will remain cheerful. One can be either happy or sad at any time. When there are several pessimistic toughest in our mind over a long period then we tend to remain unhappy our smile & cheerfulness vanishes from our countenance & all that remains is a serious & sulky face which irritates & repels others.

Pessimism results in unhappiness whereas optimism ushers cheerfulness. If we ponder deeply, it will be obvious that our sadness is self-created. Now the question arises as why should we deliberately create such problems, which aggravate unhappiness. In fact, it can create our unhappiness, then we must strive to seek ways to cheerfulness.

The way of remaining happy is by nurturing happy thoughts in our mind. When we get up in the morning we should invite good thoughts in our mind & think about good things. We should say to ourselves that this day will be a wonderful day & all problems would be faced tactfully by us.

The key to happiness is in bestowing love & affection towards humanity. One can experience for himself how much happiness he gets by gentle & nice behavior towards others.

We create a cheerful atmosphere around us when we're happy & whoever come in contact with us is bound to feel happy. To be cheerful & happy one must shun hatred, stop worrying, remain normal & spread love among others. We must treat others, as we would expect them to treat us. If we adopt that practice, happiness is bound to result.

There are several advantages of remaining cheerful. Not only there is radian on one’s face but he stays healthy & his body system remains normally.

Medical science has proved that pessimistic qualities like worries, anger, hatred, disappointment & so on cause impediment in every talk that we perform whereas on the other hand positive traits like love, peace, reverence, joy & hope encourage us to do our work efficiently.

If we keep this in mind & adopt it in practice, we can avoid several ailments & unnecessary worries. So be cheerful, be happy!

Chandan Chatterjee

cheerful

It's amazing at how powerful a cheerful attitude can really be .

Typically being a depressed oppressed person, it is often the most I can do to drag myself thru the day. Betty used to quote,

 "It's often a heroic act just to get up in the morning."

However, true this may be & however comon place the low level slow burning, ubiqitous grumpiness may be, I have enough remembrance of a prior life to know that a positive attitude gets one along further, than the so frequenly called 'honest' one does .

In AA, which for many reasons, I wish I had a legitimate excuse to join, there is a saying of: "Fake it till you make it ." The saying can be applied to anything .

Anyway, one morning, marching off to work in my usual funk, I stopped by the apartment manager's office to pay my rent . Granted, this should make the management happy, but chipperness is never expected nowdays .

To my surprise they were cheerful & appreciative . This wasn't expected, nor was it easy for them to do, considering the number of hassles they have to deal with on a daily basis .

Nevertheless it raised my spirits & made me rexamine my own surly attitude. I decided that if they could brighten up people's lives with such little effort, why shouldn't I?

After all, if gloom is contagious, so would be glee. As the cynic holds onto a claim of 'honesty', it's also honest to say that letting a smile be your umbrella, actually does some visible good for all . When discouraged, remember that 12-step saying I mentioned earlier:

"Fake it till you make it "

congress 19 March 2002

The Penniless Vagrants 

One morning, a penniless vagrant, who was perfectly miserable, was ambling along a lonely road when he encountered a second penniless vagrant, who was perfectly cheerful.

"Cheer up!" said this second vagrant to the first, "for we are penniless vagrants."

"Yeah, I know," said the miserable vagrant, "and that is the cause of my misery - for I have no home."

"Of course you have a home," sighed the cheerful vagrant, “the whole world is your home. The ground is your bed, the sky is your ceiling & the mossy hollows are your Draylon^® three-piece. For remember, we penniless vagrants are welcome guests in the Universal Hotel."

What is the best way to become cheerful & dynamic?      

Every day, every hour, every minute, consciously try to convince your mind that you're 7 years old. Then imagine what you were doing at the age of 7.

Perhaps your mother was doing this or that with you, or your father was taking you here & there. At that time you did everything with such dynamism & cheerfulness.

Perhaps your parents were getting someone to teach you to ride a horse & play the flute in the hope that one day you'd become a great rider or musician. Even if these things didn't happen on the physical plane, imagine that you were doing these things & imagine how happy you were.

If you can bring back to your conscious mind the enthusiasm & eagerness that you felt when you were 7, then easily you can be dynamic & cheerful.