THE OPTIMIST.
The habit of looking on the bright side of things is worth far more than a thousand pounds a year.
—Samuel Johnson.
"More than half the unhappiness in the world comes from a person's unwillingness to look on the bright side so long as a dark side can be discovered."
We all like the optimist. The bright, cheerful, good-natured fellow, who always looks through the cloud and sees its silver lining, is as good as a tonic to our most pessimistic dispositions. If, then, you wish to make yourself agreeable to others and to yourself, cultivate the habit of cheerfulness—of always looking on the bright side. Wear a pleasant countenance; let cheerfulness beam in your eye; let love write its mark on your forehead, and have kind words and a pleasant greeting for those whom you meet. Don't forget to say "good morning!" and say it heartily. Say it to your brothers and sisters, your school-mates, your parents, your teachers and your friends. Pleasant, hearty greetings cheer the discouraged, rest the tired, and make the wheels of life run more smoothly. They clear up the thorny pathways, win friends, and confound enemies. In fact, it is impossible to resist the influence of cheerfulness. Let a bright face beam on the darkness of defeat, shine on the abode of poverty; illumine the chamber of sickness, and how everything changes under its benign influence.
Victory becomes possible, competence promises a golden future, and health is wooed back again.
On the other hand, you cannot estimate the amount of unhappiness you may cause by wearing a clouded face and by speaking harsh, unkind words.
Many persons fret and whine all through life. They never appear to have a generous impulse.
"They seem to have come into the world during one of those cold, bleak, gloomy days, when there was nothing with which to build a fire. They, apparently, grew up in the same bleak atmosphere, and they live in it all their lives. You see their smallness in everything they do and say. You see it in their buying and in their selling, in their talk and in their actions. They have been well called 'the frogs that constitute one of the plagues of society.' They have never made one heart glad, nor shed one ray of sunshine upon man, woman, or child."
It is just as easy to be kind as to be cross, and as easy to give pleasure as pain. It costs nothing; it is a smile, an appreciative word, a mention of what one likes to hear spoken of rather than an irritating reference.