“God’s in His Heaven,
All’s right with the world,”
will help some, a recalling of the advantages of Happiness—or of the disadvantages of Non-Happiness—and a working out of the ways in which the past “failures” of ourselves and others turned into blessings, will help others. I remember how disappointed I was when I did not get a Fellowship at Cambridge. I am now very glad that I did not. What seemed a calamity led to my present work, which enables me to keep happy. As a fossilised Don I should not have kept happy!
Appreciation and Welcome
We should go far towards keeping happy, also, if we practised Appreciation. We breathe fresh air, drink pure water, see glorious scenery, or architecture, and so forth, without a tithe of the proper enjoyment which would come from the proper valuation—for instance, of the water as refreshing us, satisfying us, helping our assimilation of nourishing food, helping our elimination of toxic waste matter, and symbolising much besides.
It is far better to approach any persons or things or circumstances that are ours—they would not come to us, or we to them, unless they were ours!—in the spirit of Welcome, and in the true and sporting Play Spirit, than in the spirit of discontent.
So keep happy by Appreciation.
Laugh
Some people have a genius for seeing the funny side of so-called “misfortunes,” like the Chinaman who could not control his laughter, just before his execution, because they were going to hang the wrong man. In a little booklet called “Fifty Years not Old,” I wrote:—
“Laughing is a capital relief for unpleasant mental states, as well as fine exercise for the stomach and liver! Democritus, the laughing and smiling philosopher, may have carried his excellent principle to excess; but he was a safer guide than the weeping and moaning philosopher.