“I try as much as I can,” said a great philosopher, “to let nothing distress me, and to take everything that happens as for the best. I believe that this is a duty and that we sin in not so doing.”
Similarly Sir John Lubbock has said:
“I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the Duty and Happiness, as well as on the Happiness and Duty; for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is the most effectual contribution to the happiness of others.”
Nothing makes for one’s own health and happiness so much as a serene mind. When the mind is self-poised and serene, every faculty and function falls into line and works normally. There is equilibrium and health everywhere in the body. The serene mind can accomplish infinitely more than the disturbed and discordant.
“A serene intentness will always prevail,
Though bluster and bustle will often fail”
The work turned out by a calm, balanced mind is healthy and strong. There is a vigor and naturalness about it which is not found in that done by a one-sided man, a mind out of balance. Serenity never dwells with discontent, with anxiety, with over-ambition. It never lives with the guilty, but dwells only with a clear conscience; it is never found apart from honesty and square dealing, or with the idle or the vicious.
The sunny man attracts business success; everybody likes to deal with agreeable, cheerful people. We instinctively shrink from a crabbed, cross, contemptible character, no matter how able he may be. We would rather do a little less business or pay a little more for our goods and deal with an optimist.
The great business world of to-day is too serious, too dead in earnest. Life in America is the most strenuous ever experienced in the history of the world. There is a perpetual need of relief from this great tension, and a sunny, cheerful, gracious soul is like an ocean breeze in sultry August, like the coming of a vacation. We welcome it because it gives us at least temporary relief from the strenuous strain. Country store-keepers look forward for months to the visits of jolly, breezy travelling men, and their wholesale houses profit by their good nature. Cheerful-faced and pleasant-voiced clerks can sell more goods and attract more customers than saucy, snappy, disagreeable ones. Promoters, organizers of great enterprises, must make a business of being agreeable, of harmonizing hostile interests, of winning men's good opinion. Newspaper men, likewise, depend on making friends to gain entrée, to get interviews, to discover facts, and to find news. All doors fly open to the sunny man, and he is invited to enter when the disagreeable, sarcastic, gloomy man has to break open the door to force his way in. Many another business is founded on courtesy, cheerfulness, and good humor.
Employees can often make their situations easier, get more salary, and win promotion by always being cheerful and bright, besides having a pleasant, happy time themselves. Emory Belle tells how this worked in her own case:
“I started out to my work one morning, determined to try the power of cheerful thinking (I had been moody long enough). I said to myself: ‘I have often observed that a happy state of mind has a wonderful effect upon my physical make-up, so I will try its effect upon others, and see if my right thinking can be brought to act upon them.’ You see I was curious. As I walked along, more and more resolved on my purpose, and persisting that I was happy, that the world was treating me well, I was surprised to find myself lifted up, as it were; my carriage became more erect, my step lighter, and I had the sensation of treading on air. Unconsciously, I was smiling, for I caught myself in the act once or twice. I looked into the faces of the women I passed and there saw so much trouble and anxiety, discontent, even to peevishness, that my heart went out to them, and I wished I could impart to them a wee bit of the sunshine I felt pervading me.
“Arriving at the office, I greeted the bookkeeper with some passing remark, that for the life of me I could not have made under different conditions; I am not naturally witty; it immediately put us on a pleasant footing for the day; she had caught the reflection. The president of the company I was employed by was a very busy man and much worried over his affairs, and at some remark that he made about my work I would ordinarily have felt quite hurt (being too sensitive by nature and education); but this day I had determined nothing should mar its brightness, so replied to him cheerfully. His brow cleared, and there was another pleasant footing established, and so throughout the day I went, allowing no cloud to spoil its beauty for me or others about me. At the kind home where I was staying the same course was pursued, and, where before I had felt estrangement and want of sympathy, I found congeniality and warm friendship. People will meet you halfway if you will take the trouble to go that far.
“So, my sisters, if you think the world is not treating you kindly, don’t delay a day, but say to yourselves: ‘I am going to keep young in spite of the gray hairs; even if things do not always come my way I am going to live for others, and shed sunshine across the pathway of all I meet.’ You will find happiness springing up like flowers around you, will never want for friends or companionship, and above all the peace of God will rest upon your soul.”
The world is too full of sadness and sorrow, misery and sickness; it needs more sunshine; it needs cheerful lives which radiate gladness; it needs encouragers who shall lift and not bear down; who shall encourage, not discourage.
Who can estimate the value of the sunny soul who scatters gladness and good cheer wherever he goes, instead of gloom and sadness? Everybody is attracted to these cheerful faces and sunny lives, and repelled by the gloomy, the morose, the sad. We envy people who radiate cheer wherever they go, who fling out gladness from every pore. Money, houses, lands, look contemptible beside such a disposition. The ability to radiate sunshine is a greater power than beauty, than mere mental accomplishments.
Oh, what riches live in a sunny soul! What a blessed heritage is a sunny nature, able to fling out sunshine wherever it goes, able to scatter the shadows and to lighten sorrow-laden hearts, having power to send cheer into despairing souls. And if, haply, this heritage is combined with a superb manner and exquisite personality, no money wealth can compare with its value.
This blessing is not difficult of acquisition, for a sunny face is but a reflection of a warm, generous heart. The sunshine does not appear first upon the face, but in the soul. The glad smile that makes the face radiant is but a glimpse of the soul’s sunshine.
By taking a large-hearted interest in everyone we meet, by trying to pierce through the mask of the outer man or woman, to the inmost core, and by cultivating kindly feelings toward all, it is possible to acquire this inestimable gift. It is really only the development of our own finest qualities that enables us to understand and draw out what is fine and noble in others. Nothing will pay one better than the acquisition of the power to make others feel at ease, happy, and satisfied with themselves.
Sunny people dispel melancholy, gloom, worry, and anxiety from all those with whom they come in contact, just as the sun drives away darkness. When they enter a roomful of people, where the conversation has been lagging, and where everybody seems bored, they transform the surroundings like the sun bursting through thick, black clouds after a storm. Everybody takes on a joyous spirit from the glad soul just entered, tongues are untied, conversation which dragged becomes bright and spirited, and the whole atmosphere vibrates with gladness and good cheer.
There is nothing which you could put into your life, except service to others, which would pay you so well as the cultivation of sunshine in your business or profession, and in your social relations. Business will come to you instead of having to be sought, friends will seek you, society open wide its doors to you. A cheerful disposition is a fund of ready capital, a magnet for the good things of life.
Force yourself, if necessary, to form the habit of seeing the best in people, of finding out their good qualities, and dwelling upon