Happiness and a positive mental attitude flow from the inside-out.
I decided to write this COPING column episode about my mother, and how she attained happiness and a positive attitude throughout her entire life. I hope you get a few ideas to improve your optimistic outlook and happiness index from her.
My mother passed away in 2004 at the Bethesda Care Center in Fremont, Ohio. I remember how the people there loved her upbeat attitude, until the very end. She became positive at an early age, for doctors said she would never live past the age of 12, due to pleurisy. She fought to prove them wrong, and I found an old diary she kept since childhood. She lived by these words which I believe helped her conquer her illness:
“A smile is a curve that can set a lot of things straight. There are no bad days- some are just better than others. I’ve found a little remedy to ease the life I live and make each day a happier one- it is the word ‘forgive.’”
Her independence shown through when she wrote “Free enterprise gives everybody a chance to get to the top. Some depend too much on the free and not enough on the enterprise!”
Here’s more: “You grow up the day you have your first laugh… at yourself. He tried to be somebody by trying to be like everybody, which made him a nobody. If you want to be happy, begin where you are, don’t wait for some rapture that’s future far, begin to be joyous, begin to be glad, and soon you’ll forget that you were sad.”
“Laugh a little, sing a little as you go on your way! Work a little, play a little- do this every day! Give a little, take a little, never mind a frown- make your smile a welcome thing, all around the town! Laugh a little, love a little, the skies are always blue, and every cloud has silver linings, but it’s up to you!”
“If we learn how to give ourselves, to forgive others, and to live with thanksgiving, we need not seek happiness- it will seek us. When you start shouting, you know you have lost the argument.”
The nurses at Bethesda loved her smile whenever they came in her room. She always smiled and held their hand. I can see why: “A smile cost nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometime lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of a friendship. It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, yet it cannot be bought, for it has no value until it is given away.”
Maybe we all should keep a daily diary like my mother’s and practice it daily like she did for 89 years, because many of us find it difficult to find happiness. The annual “World Happiness Report” from the United Nations revealed that the U.S. dropped in the rankings for the third straight year, and despite a strong economy and low crime rate, we are now the 19th happiest nation on Earth.
That’s America’s worst showing ever. Happiness levels in America remained stagnant over the past 50 years while our living standards grew. Are we forgetting that we all possess the ingredients for happiness? Even though scientists search for a genetic link that suggests some may embody a greater propensity for happiness than others, the fact remains that joyfulness resides in each of us.
If your DNA threads lead to a propensity for downheartedness, then you will simply have to burrow deeper to unearth the happiness within. It’s there, waiting for you to discover it! Happiness or glumness dwell within both the healthy and ailing, rich and penniless, smart and dull, or the handsome and unattractive. Happy people discover that cheerfulness must be learned and practiced daily, or it will wither away. Take my mother, for example, she had plenty of reasons to be unhappy in her childhood, but she chose not to.
My mother took responsibility for her own contentment and didn’t a potentially fatal case of pleurisy get her down. So, don’t allow the upcoming 2022 primary elections, the government, your boss, social attackers and gossip, or a myriad of other external events to upset you for very long. Ever notice how people who remain in high spirits at the office or shop deliver more than what life pays them to do? They reach beyond their own selfish needs to extend small courtesies that inspirit the lives of others. They dream dreams, set worthy goals, remain committed to paying the price to achieve them, and enjoy the gallant journey toward reaching them.
Your road to happiness must be an active process since life doesn’t devote itself to making you happy. By design, it is the manner in which you have traveled through life that makes you who you are today. If you passively sit back, complain, and wait for happiness to arrive, you will never encounter it…even if it knocks on your door, which it rarely does. The happiest people I’ve met laugh through life’s little irritations. Zig Ziglar wrote about a man who bought a lemon of a used car and drove it back onto the used car lot a week later and said to the upbeat and persuasive salesman, “Could you please tell me about this car again? Sometimes I get so discouraged with it!”
Yes, the natural order dictates that disappointing things will happen to you and fairness, peace and justice will not always go your way, so you need to be encouraged… like Zig Ziglar. Happiness is not the absence of problems- it’s how you deal with them. You will only be as happy as you make up your mind to be, so don’t allow life’s upsets to rob you of the power to discover your good side. I’ve counseled many people who have found happiness despite past upsets and current injustices. Traumatic events licked the red off their candy canes, but they discovered the free, miracle cure which has no bad side effects… a ready smile and a resolve to be happy, like my mother did as a child! People can’t purchase a prescription drug at the local pharmacy to find happiness and contentment, they simply unearth it from deep inside themselves, for it only flows in one direction, from the inside/out.
Robert Morton has retired from his positions of school psychologist and adjunct professor in the School of Leadership and Policy Studies at Bowling Green State University. He writes the COPING column and authored three spy thriller novels: “MISSION OF VENGEANCE”, “PENUMBRA DATABASE”, and “THE SHADOW WAR”- they can be found in Kindle or paperback at Amazon.com books.