If really you can't help it, you are in an abnormal condition, you have lost self-control,—it is a mild type of mental derangement. You must attack your bad habit of worrying as you would a disease. It is definitely something to be overcome, an infirmity that you are to get rid of.
"Be good and you will be happy," is a very old piece of advice. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore now proposes to reverse it,—"Be happy and you will be good." If unhappiness is a bad habit, you are to turn about by sheer force of will and practice cheerfulness. "Happiness is a thing to be practiced like a violin."
Not work, but worry, fretfulness, friction,—these are our foes in America. You should not go here and there, making prominent either your bad manners or a gloomy face. Who has a right to rob other people of their happiness? "Do not," says Emerson, "hang a dismal picture on your wall; and do not deal with sables and glooms in your conversation."
If you are not at the moment cheerful,—look, speak, act, as if you were. "You know I had no money, I had nothing to give but myself," said a woman who had great sorrows to bear, but who bore them cheerfully. "I formed a resolution never to sadden any one else with my troubles. I have laughed and told jokes when I could have wept. I have always smiled in the face of every misfortune. I have tried never to let any one go from my presence without a happy word or a bright thought to carry away. And happiness makes happiness. I myself am happier than I should have been had I sat down and bemoaned my fate."
"'T is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows along like a song;
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong;
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years;
And the smile that is worth the praise of the earth
Is the smile that comes through tears."
"She is an aged woman, but her face is serene and peaceful, though trouble has not passed her by. She seems utterly above the little worries and vexations which torment the average woman and leave lines of care. The Fretful Woman asked her one day the secret of her happiness; and the beautiful old face shone with joy.
"'My dear,' she said, 'I keep a Pleasure Book.'
"'A what?'
"'A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned that there is no day so dark and gloomy that it does not contain some ray of light, and I have made it one business of my life to write down the little things which mean so much to a woman. I have a book marked for every day of every year since I left school. It is but a little thing: the new gown, the chat with a friend, the thoughtfulness of my husband, a flower, a book, a walk in the field, a letter, a concert, or a drive; but it all goes into my Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to fret, I read a few pages to see what a happy, blessed woman I am. You may see my treasures if you will.'