“What does your anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow, brother, of its sorrow; but ah! it empties to-day of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit to cope with it if it comes.”
Therefore, keep happy.
On the moral and ethical side, non-happiness, especially in the form of worry, is cowardly, unbalanced, against moral consistency and persistency, against self-control and self-mastery, and very unkind to others.
Therefore, keep happy.
Non-happiness shortens life, and brings premature, incompetent, burdensome old age.
It is selfish, in the worst sense of the word; for there is a selfishness that is altruistic.
It harms posterity, as—among other proofs—we see from the influence of a mother upon her babe before as well as after birth.
It makes us less independent and less free. Therefore, keep happy.
How Happiness Helps
Happiness, by the “expulsive power” of a positive state of mind, drives out or neutralises or cancels non-happiness, instead of the mind being left open to the seven other devils, as it may be when we merely try not to be non-happy. The happy heart is too full for non-happiness, as the light room is too light for darkness. As Mr. A. Knight says, Happiness fills the heart with its three companions, Health, Harmony, and Helpfulness.