JOIN USIt is a known fact of life that, of all the things we wear, our expression is the most important. Rags and tears in our clothing can be sealed with the smiles and good cheer of our personality.
It is not in what we are dressed that matters in as much as in the good spirit that our countenances manifest. In so expressing cheer our inner self automatically bcomes caroused with optimism, ringing in joy into our lives.
Beginning the day with cheerful, happy thoughts set the right mood for the day that can beat any gloominess present in the world outside. Cheerfulness is like the sun beam that breaks through the thick, black clouds that dispel darkness brought by a storm. Temporary setbacks can be dispelled by beams of cheerful thoughts breaking through melancholic feelings.
The life of Fanny Crosby, the American Methodist rescue mission worker, poet lyricist, and composer, is an inspiring case in point.
Fanny Crosby, who lived up to a ripe age of 95 years composing thousands of hymns and gospel songs, to become one of the most prolific hymnists in history, lost her sight when she was hardly a few weeks old. Yet, from an early age she cultivated the habit of cheerful thought.
Her resolution to be cheerful was so dominant that when she was only eight years old she is quoted to have said, “How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t. To weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot and I won’t.” She carried that spirit all her life and on her 92nd birthday she cheerfully said, “If in all the world you can find a happier person than I am, do bring him to me. I should like to shake his hands.”
It is not a wonder then, that Fanny Crosby, who made a choice to be cheerful in the face of what many would have perceived as a grave tragedy, was eventually inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and got the title “Queen of Gospel Song Writers.”
Being cheerful is then an important ingredient to a happy life.
It brings with it other benefits as well. From brightening the eye to enhancing effective blood circulation, cheerfulness promotes health and adds a glow to the face which the pessimist never can radiate. And developing this art of maintaining a sunny disposition is not all that a complicated formula.
Training ourselves to perpetually look on the sunny side of all life’s events, ignoring the faults of others and always dwelling on the many blessings in life will breed into our lives a permanent supply of good cheer and thereby happiness.