“_Just be glad, and you always will be glad. You will have better
reasons to be glad. You will have more and more things to make you
glad._
“_When you are tempted to feel discouraged or disappointed, be glad
instead. Just be glad, and your fate will change. Know that you can be
glad, say that you will, and stand uncompromisingly upon your resolve.
When things are not to your liking, be glad nevertheless, for the glad
heart can cause all things to be as we wish them to be. When things do
not give you pleasure, proceed instead to create pleasure in your own
heart and soul._
“_It is the law that all good things will sooner or later come and be
where the greatest happiness is to be found. Therefore, be happiness in
yourself, regardless of times, seasons, or circumstances._
“_It is the man who blends rejoicing with his work who does the best
work. It is profitable in every way to learn to be glad._
“_The happier you are over what has come to you, the more and the more
will come to you in the future. The glad heart and the cheerful soul
always make things better._
“_Give gladness to your mind, and you give clearness to your mind; and
a clear mind can see how to evolve better plans._”
In the moral and ethical and spiritual, as in the intellectual and
financial and social spheres, Happiness is a precious and integral
factor in success and progress. We might almost say that Happiness
includes the much-praised virtues of Courage, Persistence, and Poise,
and goes far towards Self-Control and Self-Mastery.
Therefore, keep happy.
It is kind to others to keep happy. Happiness tends to Forgiveness (not
of the usual perfunctory and “I-forgive-but-I-can’t-forget” type),
Goodwill, and pleasant Warmth as of the sunshine.
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness tends to the right sort of Youthfulness--the Youthfulness in
which we have all the merits of “little children,” together with the
wisdom of elders.
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness makes our life longer--not like the life of an aged person
who may be a burden upon the earth, living in name only, and almost as
a vampire lives, but a life of increasingly-useful length.
Therefore, keep happy.
For Happiness is non-selfish.
* * * * *
But non-selfishness, after all, is a negative.
Happiness does indeed include negative merits, but it is also positive
and radiating and infectious. When we ask what we can do for others,
one answer is, we can keep happy. Here, again, Larson’s words are to
the point:--
“_He who is always glad is always adding to the welfare of every member
of the race. The great soul is always in search of ways and means
for adding to the welfare of others. But no way is better, greater,
or more far reaching than this. To be glad at all times is to be of
greater service to mankind than any other thing we can do. Consider how
all things change when the glad soul arrives, and how all work becomes
lighter when the spirit of joy is abroad. And every man has the power
to dispense the spirit of joy wherever he may work or live._
“_Work in the spirit of joy, and your work will be the product of
joy--a rare product--the best of its kind._”
Therefore, keep happy.
To help all those with whom you live, and many beyond this narrow
circle, keep happy.
To help your children and posterity, whether you already are or are
going to be a father or mother, keep happy.
The relation of a parent (or of any one who has charge of children)
to children, illustrates well how our states of mind react upon
ourselves. Be happy with children, and you make them happier,
healthier, pleasanter to be with, easier to train. When they are in
this favourable condition, you yourself, in turn, have more Happiness
and health, partly because your work is more delightful and more
successful. And so your Happiness is self-increasing as well as
self-radiating.
C. D. Larson, from whose book I have already quoted, says, in another
book:--
“_Make it a point to be happy, just as you make it a point to be
clean, to be presentable, to be properly dressed, to work well, to be
efficient. Make the attainment of continuous happiness and greater
happiness a permanent part of your strongest ambition._”
Real Happiness is a power within oneself, not dependent on
circumstances; at least not dependent when it has become a habit.
He who has Happiness is like a magic plant that bears beautiful and
shade-giving and health-giving leaves, beautiful and sweet-smelling
flowers, beautiful and refreshing and cleansing fruit, wherever it is,
and without the aid of special soil, air, light, warmth, and rain. For
it has, as it were, its own subtle, ethereal, and eternal soil and air
and light and warmth and rain within itself.
Therefore, keep happy.
The Gospel of Happiness--the word “Gospel” once meant “good news,”
but now has lost much of its gladdening vitality--is, when we examine
deeply and widely, “perspectively” and prospectively, sound Philosophy
and sound Religion. To the devout Hindu, God is not only “Wisdom, Love,
Might,” but also Bliss. Sat Chit Ananda meant Lasting Reality, True
Knowledge, and Blissful Happiness. A Perfect God--and this applies
whether we believe in a Personal Being or not, for an Impersonal Being
cannot easily be imagined as sad!--cannot surely be sad; and we are
told to become perfect as God is Perfect.
We are often recommended to fill the mind with healthy, invigorating,
purifying thoughts. This, again, is a New Testament Commandment. The
words in the ordinary rendering of Philippians, iv. 8, do not bring out
the vitality and force and verve of the Greek words, but they give the
general idea:--
“_Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, just, pure,
lovely, of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any
praise, think of these things._”
It is a Commandment to attend to--to fill the mind by repetition
with--eternally true ideas, ideas that command respect, ideas that are
right, ideas that are clean and pure, ideas that are welcome and sweet;
ideas that have words of good omen, ideas of manliness and womanliness,
ideas of praise and appreciation.
Therefore, think of Happiness: keep happy.
In keeping happy, we obey the frequently reiterated Commandment to
“Rejoice,” and, without any special attention to the negative and
prohibitive Commandments not to worry, and not to be angry, and not
to be unkind, and not to criticise unkindly, and so forth, we, _ipso
facto_, obey these Commandments as well, just as the person who is
encouraged and inspired does not need to be comforted in so-called
“misfortune.”
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness helps you. “It is profitable in every way to learn to be
glad.”
Happiness helps yourself and others, and hurts none.
“_No selfish heart can really be glad._”
Happiness is the right thing to keep. Happiness is our duty, and is
“good form.”
Happiness increases itself.
“_The more things you are glad for, the more things you will have to be
glad for. Gladness is a magnet. Because you were glad, even when there
was nothing to make you glad, you proved that you deserved everything
that has the power to make you glad. And that which we truly deserve
must come to remain as our own. Possess gladness, and you will soon
possess those things that produce gladness._”
But how?