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Title: Keep Happy
Author: Eustace Miles
Release date: January 20, 2024 [eBook #72765]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1920
Credits: Carla Foust, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEEP HAPPY ***
KEEP HAPPY
SOME OTHER BOOKS
BY EUSTACE MILES, M.A.
ECONOMY OF ENERGY, AND HOW TO SECURE IT.
HOW TO PREPARE ESSAYS, ARTICLES, LECTURES, SPEECHES, ETC.
THE POWER OF CONCENTRATION: AND HOW TO ACQUIRE IT.
PREVENTION AND CURE.
LIFE AFTER LIFE.
HOW TO REMEMBER; WITHOUT AND WITH MEMORY SYSTEMS.
THE URIC ACID FETISH. With C. H. Collings.
QUICKNESS.
THE E.M. SYSTEM OF PHYSICAL CULTURE--with Two Charts of Exercises.
HEALTH AND COUNSEL BUREAU.
CURATIVE EXERCISES.
LET’S PLAY THE GAME.
A WEEK’S PROTEID DIET.
QUICK AND EASY RECIPES.
FIRST RECIPES.
HOW TO BEGIN A CHANGE OF DIET.
KEEP HAPPY
BY
EUSTACE MILES, M.A.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1920, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
FOREWORD
On my Fiftieth Birthday (Sunday, September 22, 1918), after a good
day’s work, I start, in the afternoon, to spend the few hours before
our evening meal in writing down some ideas that may help others
(besides myself, who need them as much as anyone, since I am beginning
my second half-century), to indulge less in that habit of fear, worry,
resentment, and hurry, which must be regarded as a form of suicide,
slow indeed, but working in a vicious circle and with self-increasing
force, and poisoning and paralysing others besides the respectable
offenders themselves.
The chief remedy is--keep happy.
We have had our attention so fixed on prohibitions--the “Thou shalt
not” Commandments--that we have, as a Nation, ignored the positive
commandments of the Old and New Testaments; among which a very
frequently repeated one was “Rejoice” or “Keep Happy.” Others, besides
the Master, told us not to worry, not to be afraid, not to be angry,
not to be bitter; but to be glad and happy. The orthodox should
remember that Happiness is a virtue, however unusual, and Non-Happiness
a sin, however common and respectable.
I give one quotation alone--though the usual translation does not
convey the real force of the Greek words of Philippians iv. 4-7:--
“_Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.... The Lord is
at hand. Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in everything by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
God._”
C. D. Larson’s book, “Just be Glad,” was on my table, and gave me the
thought of writing on this subject. Larson offers capital ideas on
the mental side, but he does not tell people _how_ to be glad; and,
especially, he leaves out all the Physical Helps.
In this little Birthday offering, I shall include a few Physical as
well as Mental Helps--a few out of many, since space is limited--so
that readers may be able to keep happy easily.
The art is not new, but--like the habit of deep, full, rhythmical
breathing--is always needed.
There are millions who have scarcely begun to recognise, at least to
the extent of acting upon the facts, that, while their Happiness
itself depends largely upon their digestion, their elimination of waste
matter, their circulation, etc., these influences themselves depend
largely on (1) the choice of foods and drinks, the way of eating and
drinking, the breathing and other exercises, and so forth--and on (2)
the maintenance of Happiness itself, or at least the avoidance of worry
and resentment, etc., and the expression of Happiness, until Happiness
actually is attracted and comes into a prepared nest.
KEEP HAPPY
KEEP HAPPY
Why Keep Happy? A Contrast
First work out the contrast. Before reading further, think what
happens when one keeps the opposite of happy, whatever be the actual
stage between the extreme homicidal or suicidal violence or suicidal
melancholia on the one hand, and, on the other hand, ordinary fear,
worry, resentment, depression, grumpiness, and so on.
* * * * *
Those who wish to study the effects of these states of mind more
fully, can consult Elmer Gates’ “The Mind and the Brain,” or William
S. Sadler’s “Physiology of Faith and Fear,” both quoted in my book.[A]
Professor Elmer Gates, of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington,
says:--
“_My experiments show that irascible, malevolent, and depressing
emotions generate in the system injurious compounds, some of which
are extremely poisonous; also that agreeable, happy emotions generate
chemical compounds of nutritious value, which stimulate the cells to
manufacture energy...._
“_If an evil emotion is dominant, then during that period the
respiration contains volatile poisons, which are expelled through the
breath and are characteristic of these emotions._
“_Wearisome, unpleasant memories weaken health, and do not generate
thought energy. Cure is accomplished in expelling these by another crop
of wholly pleasant memories, which put the necessary structures of the
mind in systematic order and teach the patient how to use the mental
faculties._”
Therefore, keep happy.
On page 40 of “Economy of Energy” will be found a summary of some
results of states of mind:--
“_They affect_:--
“_The heart, and the circulation--both its rate, and its distribution
of blood; (unfavourable states of mind tend to anaemia or dysxmia, or
to congestion, etc.)._
“_The actual chemical condition of the blood and the lymph._
“_The lungs, and the rhythm and the fulness of the breathing, and the
amount of oxygen inhaled, and of carbonic acid gas, etc., exhaled._
“_The digestive and ‘assimilative’ organs and functions._
“_The curative energies of the body; which include:--_
“_The excretory organs--the bowels, kidneys, skin, etc. (Thus fear may
act as a diuretic.)_
“_The muscular system in general (as when it is paralysed by fear--for
instance, when one feels ‘all of a tremble’)._
“_The appearance--the attitude, the position of the organs, the
expression of the face, etc._
“_The voice--its tone and timbre, and the words used or repressed._
“_The nervous system--partly influenced indirectly by the altered
breathing, and by the blood, and by the effects of the state of mind
upon the Solar Plexus._
“_The energy and endurance._
“_The poise, and ease of self-mastery, self-recovery, and
self-direction._
“_The brain--the clearness of thought, etc._
“_The influence of the person on others--especially in the immediate
neighbourhood._
“_The direction and bias of the mind in the future, states of mind
tending to become habitual apart from the active will._”
Therefore, keep happy.
“Anxiety (which includes fear) saps more life in a day than work does
in a week.” Anxiety is unnecessary, unproductive, destructive work. It
is hard work. It is sinful work.
We must remember how prevalent are the states of mind in which fear is
one of the factors. For fear is a factor in worry, and usually even in
anger, and in depression. These words from M. J. M. Hickson’s “Healer”
are worth reading:--
“_We have very seldom reflected upon the fact that fear runs like a
baleful thread through the whole web of our life from beginning to end.
We are born into the atmosphere of fear and dread, and the mother who
bore us had lived in the same atmosphere for weeks and months before we
were born. We are surrounded in infancy and childhood by clouds of fear
and apprehension on the part of our parents, nurses, and friends. As
we advance in life, we become instinctively, or by experience, afraid
of almost everything. We are afraid of our parents, afraid of our
teachers, afraid of our playmates, afraid of ghosts, afraid of rules
and regulations and punishments, afraid of the doctor, the dentist,
the surgeon. Our adult life is a state of chronic anxiety, which is
fear in a milder form. We are afraid of failure in business, afraid of
disappointments and mistakes, afraid of enemies, open or concealed;
afraid of poverty, afraid of public opinion, afraid of accidents, of
sickness, of death, and unhappiness after death. Man is like a haunted
animal, from the cradle to the grave, the victim of real or imaginary
fears, not only his own, but those reflected upon him from the
superstitions, self-deceptions, sensory illusions, false beliefs, and
concrete errors of the whole human race, past and present._
“_Fear not only affects the mind and the nervous and muscular tissues,
but the molecular chemical transformations of the organic network,
even to the skin, the hair, and the teeth. This might be expected
of a passion that disturbs the whole mind, which is represented or
externalised in the whole body._
“_How does fear operate upon the body to produce sickness? By
paralysing the nerve centres, especially those of the vasomotor nerves,
thus producing not only muscular relaxation, but capillary congestions
of all kinds. This condition of the system invites attack, and there
is no resilience or power of resistance. The gates of the citadel have
been opened from within, and the enemy may enter at any point._”
Therefore keep happy.
First because, once again, non-happiness is a mistake. It acts, as I
said just now, in a vicious circle, increasing itself. It poisons the
blood, and this very poisoning tends to produce more non-happiness. It
radiates itself, and is infectious. It inclines to become a fixed and
sub-conscious habit. It sinks down into the sub-conscious self, and
afterwards expresses itself in various ways which (as Psychoanalysts
show) are not usually associated with their true mental cause. It
is toxic, and produces non-health and non-efficiency, by wasting
power and force; by bringing fatigue; by encouraging bad sleep; by
injuring the whole body; by cramping the energies; by “distracting”
the body and mind, and thus hindering concentration; by impeding the
circulation, and the elimination of waste-matters; and by upsetting the
rhythm and the deepness and thoroughness of the breathing, and all the
vibrations of the physical system. Besides, it is ugly. It militates
against financial success, and against social success--for who wants a
non-happy acquaintance?--and against intellectual success.
Consider this. Non-happiness is liable to make one’s work poor
and inferior, difficult, tiring, and wanting in foresight and in
perspective.
It does not help. As Ian Maclaren said:
“_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.
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness works in the opposite of the vicious circle. It makes for
greater happiness. It is self-increasing. Among other reasons, it
purifies and invigorates the blood, and this in itself inclines the
mind towards further and greater Happiness. It creates the habit of
Happiness, the bias towards Happiness. It stores the memory with
Happiness, for future use. Prospectively, Happiness must be valued as a
great asset.
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness does not merely aid in removing mental and physical
Non-Health, in such forms as depression and fear, “nerves” and their
troubles, fatigue, sleeplessness or bad sleep, bad circulation,
congestion, and so on. It actually produces positive Health,
Well-being, and Fitness, as well as increased Self-Healing and
“Preventive” Power.
Therefore, keep happy.
Think of the letter E alone. Happiness tends to Health, in its various
aspects:--
Enjoyment of life and of all that life brings us;
Energy--for Health gives a tonic without reaction;
Economy--for, when we are happy, we need neither drugs nor stimulants
nor narcotics nor holidays; Happiness saves vast stores of precious
power, both physical and mental;
Endurance--what long hours we can work when we are happy;
Ease;
Efficiency;
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness brings the right vibrations throughout the mind and body,
partly through the Solar Plexus and the Sympathetic Nervous System.
Only lately have we begun to realise the importance of the rate and
character of vibrations. Let the same elements vibrate differently, and
we have ice or water or steam. We know the full and elastic firmness
and resilience of faith, the shrunken and paralysed trembling of fear.
It is largely a difference of vibrations. Happiness has the most
desirable vibrations.
Happiness means that we inhale more life-giving and cleansing oxygen,
and exhale more carbonic acid and other waste matter.
Happiness means that we have better sleep, and can do with less sleep.
Happiness means improved circulation. It keeps the body warm in winter
and cool in summer. It relieves the physical heart.
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness gives better looks. It makes the eyes brighter, the
complexion clearer, the step more vigorous, the carriage more upright.
And, generally, Happiness makes people more attractive. It has a marked
social value.
Therefore, keep happy.
Financially, Happiness pays. The happy salesman or saleswoman is more
persuasive. The happy person gets and keeps more friends, who will like
to help him, if only because his Happiness helps them. James Coates
says:
“_Smile at your business, and it will smile back. Follow the light of
that smile._”
Therefore, keep happy.
Intellectually, Happiness helps us to see with surer clearness and
foresight. Happiness helps us to solve our problems rightly. Happiness
gives us more understanding and more intuition. Happiness makes us more
receptive to the best ideas. Happiness puts us in better perspective.
Happiness, once again, increases our mental energy, endurance, ease,
and effectiveness.
These quotations from C. D. Larson are excellent. He says:--
“_Just be glad, and you always will be glad. You will have better
reasons to be glad. You will have more and more things to make you
glad._
“_When you are tempted to feel discouraged or disappointed, be glad
instead. Just be glad, and your fate will change. Know that you can be
glad, say that you will, and stand uncompromisingly upon your resolve.
When things are not to your liking, be glad nevertheless, for the glad
heart can cause all things to be as we wish them to be. When things do
not give you pleasure, proceed instead to create pleasure in your own
heart and soul._
“_It is the law that all good things will sooner or later come and be
where the greatest happiness is to be found. Therefore, be happiness in
yourself, regardless of times, seasons, or circumstances._
“_It is the man who blends rejoicing with his work who does the best
work. It is profitable in every way to learn to be glad._
“_The happier you are over what has come to you, the more and the more
will come to you in the future. The glad heart and the cheerful soul
always make things better._
“_Give gladness to your mind, and you give clearness to your mind; and
a clear mind can see how to evolve better plans._”
In the moral and ethical and spiritual, as in the intellectual and
financial and social spheres, Happiness is a precious and integral
factor in success and progress. We might almost say that Happiness
includes the much-praised virtues of Courage, Persistence, and Poise,
and goes far towards Self-Control and Self-Mastery.
Therefore, keep happy.
It is kind to others to keep happy. Happiness tends to Forgiveness (not
of the usual perfunctory and “I-forgive-but-I-can’t-forget” type),
Goodwill, and pleasant Warmth as of the sunshine.
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness tends to the right sort of Youthfulness--the Youthfulness in
which we have all the merits of “little children,” together with the
wisdom of elders.
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness makes our life longer--not like the life of an aged person
who may be a burden upon the earth, living in name only, and almost as
a vampire lives, but a life of increasingly-useful length.
Therefore, keep happy.
For Happiness is non-selfish.
* * * * *
But non-selfishness, after all, is a negative.
Happiness does indeed include negative merits, but it is also positive
and radiating and infectious. When we ask what we can do for others,
one answer is, we can keep happy. Here, again, Larson’s words are to
the point:--
“_He who is always glad is always adding to the welfare of every member
of the race. The great soul is always in search of ways and means
for adding to the welfare of others. But no way is better, greater,
or more far reaching than this. To be glad at all times is to be of
greater service to mankind than any other thing we can do. Consider how
all things change when the glad soul arrives, and how all work becomes
lighter when the spirit of joy is abroad. And every man has the power
to dispense the spirit of joy wherever he may work or live._
“_Work in the spirit of joy, and your work will be the product of
joy--a rare product--the best of its kind._”
Therefore, keep happy.
To help all those with whom you live, and many beyond this narrow
circle, keep happy.
To help your children and posterity, whether you already are or are
going to be a father or mother, keep happy.
The relation of a parent (or of any one who has charge of children)
to children, illustrates well how our states of mind react upon
ourselves. Be happy with children, and you make them happier,
healthier, pleasanter to be with, easier to train. When they are in
this favourable condition, you yourself, in turn, have more Happiness
and health, partly because your work is more delightful and more
successful. And so your Happiness is self-increasing as well as
self-radiating.
C. D. Larson, from whose book I have already quoted, says, in another
book:--
“_Make it a point to be happy, just as you make it a point to be
clean, to be presentable, to be properly dressed, to work well, to be
efficient. Make the attainment of continuous happiness and greater
happiness a permanent part of your strongest ambition._”
Real Happiness is a power within oneself, not dependent on
circumstances; at least not dependent when it has become a habit.
He who has Happiness is like a magic plant that bears beautiful and
shade-giving and health-giving leaves, beautiful and sweet-smelling
flowers, beautiful and refreshing and cleansing fruit, wherever it is,
and without the aid of special soil, air, light, warmth, and rain. For
it has, as it were, its own subtle, ethereal, and eternal soil and air
and light and warmth and rain within itself.
Therefore, keep happy.
The Gospel of Happiness--the word “Gospel” once meant “good news,”
but now has lost much of its gladdening vitality--is, when we examine
deeply and widely, “perspectively” and prospectively, sound Philosophy
and sound Religion. To the devout Hindu, God is not only “Wisdom, Love,
Might,” but also Bliss. Sat Chit Ananda meant Lasting Reality, True
Knowledge, and Blissful Happiness. A Perfect God--and this applies
whether we believe in a Personal Being or not, for an Impersonal Being
cannot easily be imagined as sad!--cannot surely be sad; and we are
told to become perfect as God is Perfect.
We are often recommended to fill the mind with healthy, invigorating,
purifying thoughts. This, again, is a New Testament Commandment. The
words in the ordinary rendering of Philippians, iv. 8, do not bring out
the vitality and force and verve of the Greek words, but they give the
general idea:--
“_Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, just, pure,
lovely, of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any
praise, think of these things._”
It is a Commandment to attend to--to fill the mind by repetition
with--eternally true ideas, ideas that command respect, ideas that are
right, ideas that are clean and pure, ideas that are welcome and sweet;
ideas that have words of good omen, ideas of manliness and womanliness,
ideas of praise and appreciation.
Therefore, think of Happiness: keep happy.
In keeping happy, we obey the frequently reiterated Commandment to
“Rejoice,” and, without any special attention to the negative and
prohibitive Commandments not to worry, and not to be angry, and not
to be unkind, and not to criticise unkindly, and so forth, we, _ipso
facto_, obey these Commandments as well, just as the person who is
encouraged and inspired does not need to be comforted in so-called
“misfortune.”
Therefore, keep happy.
Happiness helps you. “It is profitable in every way to learn to be
glad.”
Happiness helps yourself and others, and hurts none.
“_No selfish heart can really be glad._”
Happiness is the right thing to keep. Happiness is our duty, and is
“good form.”
Happiness increases itself.
“_The more things you are glad for, the more things you will have to be
glad for. Gladness is a magnet. Because you were glad, even when there
was nothing to make you glad, you proved that you deserved everything
that has the power to make you glad. And that which we truly deserve
must come to remain as our own. Possess gladness, and you will soon
possess those things that produce gladness._”
But how?
How to Keep Happy
It is so easy to say to others, or to ourselves, Keep happy. But _how_
keep happy?
Here are a few out of many helps.
People will ask, “What about trying circumstances? How can we keep
happy under, or in them, whether they be past or present or future?”
I was much struck by a phrase in a little book I read some time ago. It
described how someone, who was going to an unpleasant interview, was
told:--“Go to the man, taking God with you.” A good piece of general
advice is to welcome the circumstances as one would welcome either a
strong opponent or a severe handicap at a game--namely, as a privilege
and an occasion for bringing out (as a great player said) “one’s best
game.” I think a “handicap” is an excellent description. For what true
sportsman resents a handicap?
Turn the Mind to Blessings,
or think of your own blessings, not only in the past, but also in the
present. Think of all the conveniences of civilisation. Then, if you
like, contrast the hardships of primitive times--with no books, no
travelling facilities, no sanitation!
Think of blessings, and keep happy.
Think of the blessings of others. Anything is better than giving
attention to supposed injuries and hardships, and to sorrows, and
resenting or bemoaning them.
or to Reasoning
When things seem amiss, then is _the_ time to give all your thoughts
the upward direction. Keep happy. Hold on to Happiness, not like grim
death but like irrepressible life.
Remember that “everything serves _some_ useful purpose.” If you refuse
to keep happy, at least determine to find out the useful purpose. But,
as soon as you can, come back to yourself, and keep happy.
Help Others
Help others. This is the old and ever new way. As Maeterlinck says:
“_Before we can bring happiness to others, we must first be happy
ourselves. Nor will happiness abide within us unless we confer it on
others. If there be a smile upon our lips, those around us will soon
smile too; and our happiness will become the truer and deeper as we see
that these others are happy._”
Therefore, keep happy by helping others. We can help others by our
thoughts--by wishing them to be well and happy and successful, or by
imagining them to be well and happy and successful. We can help them by
all our expressions--our words, our looks, our acts--and by our very
abstinence from non-happiness.
Abstain from Thoughts against Others and against Self
Merely to send out no thoughts and to harbour no thoughts against
other persons or things, or against ourselves, is a step in the right
direction. I once saw hornets destroyed by a man who stood over the
nest and, as each hornet came out, knocked it down and killed it by
a blow from a little wooden bat. So we can beat down any undesirable
thought--of worry or failure or resentment, etc.--so that it ceases to
live and poison us or others.
But still this is negative. It is not positive and constructive.
To keep happy, we must fill the glass, drop by drop, with the
sparkling and fresh water of Happiness; and then the dirty water will
automatically trickle away, and--who knows?--somehow become a kind of
mental manure and fertiliser.
“Self-Suggestion”
Self-Suggestion is a great help, if we would keep happy. We can tell
ourselves to keep happy, in the same way as Peter Latham, at a hard and
critical point in one of his Professional Championship Matches, kept
not only happy but also plucky by telling himself to “buck up,” as
this was _the_ chance to bring out his best game!
Self-Suggestion has many forms and varieties. Henry Wood, in his “Ideal
Suggestion Through Mental Photography,” advises us to write down
inspiring “Self-Suggestions,” and to look at them often. Leland, in his
“Have You a Strong Will?” advises us to determine, the last thing at
night, that the next day we will, for example, work calmly and easily
and successfully. I myself find that now one form of Self-Suggestion is
most effective, now another. It may be Imagination or Realisation or
Assertion, or it may be a quiet order to the Servant Mind or Manager
Mind, or it may be a strongly-felt and repeated Desire, or it may be
nearer to Silence and Receptivity, together with “the attitude of
expectancy.”
Self-suggestion is feasible at all times and in all places. It is
unobtrusive. It is “without money and without price.” It is effective.
It tends to become a sub-conscious habit, and, as it were, to “do
itself” without our attention.
To keep happy, we can use happy words. Words have vast and little
appreciated power. Think how useless we should be as regards our power
of controlling ourselves and helping ourselves and helping others, if
we had no words! It would be easy to write a long book on this aspect
of the Art of Happiness, alone. But I must be content with just one
idea.
We should speak with a cheerful voice and tone, as well as with a
cheerful face; and we should prefer, to such words of ill omen as
“miserable” and “cruel,” words that end rightly, such as un-happy
and un-kind--words that leave us with the right and happy notion.
Conversely, however, when we are--or think that we are--absolutely
obliged to mention some unpleasant episode, in order to get others to
help to put it right, we must _not_ use such vivid expressions--we must
not speak whiningly nor even keenly. This is preeminently the occasion
for such a monotonous and expressionless voice, as is unusually put on
by a Secretary when reading the minutes of any previous meeting!
Can we not speak of pleasant things with the excitedness of the French,
if indeed we wish to be excited at all; but speak of unpleasant things,
if we feel we must speak of them, with the apathy of the Hindu?
When you have finished any Self-Suggestion, be sure to keep happy.
To keep happy, we must use Repetitions of Self-Suggestions and of
Happy Words, and we must use them long before we seem to need them.
In place of the old adage, “In time of peace prepare for war,” one can
substitute, “In time of peace prepare for victory”--and then there will
be no real war.
Persistent Repetitions
The persistent Repetitions may be in the form of sheer repetitions;
or in the form of Synonyms--such as Happiness, Gladness, Enjoyment,
Joy, Welcome; or in the form of cognate words, words that suggest not
so much Happiness itself, as the father and mother, the brothers and
sisters, the sons and daughters, of Happiness. Thus, to take the letter
P alone, it has a decided effect upon our feelings of Happiness to
repeat, with as much attention to and realization of the idea and the
inner spirit and soul of each word, as possible, the words Purity,
Poise, Peace, Plenty, Power, Pluck, Pleasantness.
As to the influence of Repetition, we must remember that we are mainly
what our sub-conscious mind is; and our sub-conscious mind is largely
what our conscious mind has chosen or allowed itself to think, and what
our conscious mind every moment--every now--is choosing or allowing
itself to think.
Or, instead of repeating the ideas themselves or the words that can
convey them, we can keep happy by Reason and Argumentation. While an
Assertion like Robert Browning’s,
“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._
“_It is worth while to collect cartoons and cuttings from the ‘Daily
Mirror,’ ‘Punch,’ and other papers, and to look through them when the
dumps try to dominate._”
Laughing and smiling can come under muscular control, no less than
walking and sitting--no less than frowning and grumbling. We can tense
or relax muscles. We can equally easily laugh or smile. And the mere
muscular action will help the mind and the feelings to be free from
non-happiness.
There are, of course, wrong kinds of laughter and smiling. I read a
book devoted almost entirely to the abuse of laughter and smiling. But
the right kinds are as valuable as they are rare.
Several people that I know have the supreme art of making troubles
almost blessings by catching at once the ludicrous aspect--going round
to the other side and seeing things from a different approach. And
sometimes, entering into the trouble by the Gate of Humour, they find
that the trouble is not a torture-chamber but a factory of Success and
Happiness.
The right laugh and smile is an expression of real Faith; and, as
we have seen, the expression, if persevered in, tends to bring the
reality.
The Power of Imagination
And keep happy by Imagination. How exhilarating it is to imagine
oneself succeeding in one’s favourite game, or in one’s business or art
or hobby. Such imagination is far better than the memory of defeats,
except in so far as the latter helps us to correct our faults.
The Power of Expression
Then there is the Art of Expression, advocated by Delsarte and William
James. The latter, in his “Talks on Psychology,” may not be strictly
accurate and scientific, but at any rate he is practically useful, when
he says:
“_If we only check a cowardly impulse in time--for example, or if
we only don’t strike the blow or rip out with the complaining or
insulting word that we shall regret as long as we live--our feelings
themselves will presently be the calmer and better, with no particular
guidance from us on their own account. Action seems to follow feeling,
but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the
action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can
indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not._
“_Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous
cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round
cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.
If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on
that occasion can. So, to feel brave, act as if we_ were _brave, use
all our will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace
the fit of fear. Again, in order to feel kindly toward a person to
whom we have been inimical, the only way is more or less deliberately
to smile, to make sympathetic inquiries, and to force ourselves to
say genial things. One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into
a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward
wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling. To wrestle
with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, and keeps it still
fastened in the mind: whereas, if we act as if from some better
feeling, the old bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab, and
silently steals away._”
An equally good quotation (from Luther Gulick’s “Mind and Work”) will
be found on pages 26-27 of “Economy of Energy.”
He says:
“_Assume the bodily positions and movements and manners and tones of
voice that belong to the emotional state you desire._”
Now the Expression--as the smile that is the expression of
Happiness--may not be the cause of Happiness, but at least it is the
usual accompaniment, if not the essential accompaniment, of ordinary
Happiness.
The eyes are among the most obvious means of Expression, as is
illustrated in the well-known lines:--
“_Smile, once in a while,
’Twill make your heart seem lighter;
Smile, once in a while,
’Twill make your pathway brighter.
Life’s a mirror: if we smile,
Smiles come back to greet us;
If we’re frowning all the while,
Frowns forever meet us._”
The whole face is a part of our Expression--not only the eyes, but
also the mouth, and the lines, which are largely under the ultimate
control of the will, through the control of the muscles.
And there is the whole attitude of the body, the up-holding of the
chest and the head, the correct curve of the spine (so as to bring the
position of “mechanical advantage” and physical and nervous economy),
the deepness and fulness and rhythm of the breathing, the laugh, the
song (sung aloud or “sung silently”), and the tone and the “tune” and
the timbre of the voice.
Uses of Odd Moments
What we seldom realise is that, no less than we can move our biceps,
we can move our muscles that regulate our Expression. If people can
spend 15 minutes daily over a dull--and often almost useless, if
not actually stiffening and harmful--grinding series of spring-grip
dumb-bell exercises, why will they not spend a few moments at some one
time daily, or many (otherwise wasted or misused) moments at frequent
intervals throughout the day, in exercising the muscles that regulate
their Expression--in lifting up their heart (and chest and head) and in
laughing or smiling, so as to keep happy?
Besides the Expression, as an easy avenue to Happiness, there is
another--rather less easy--avenue in the improvement of the state
of the Health in general, and the state of the Blood in particular,
through more sensible Foods and Feeding, Drinks, Water-treatments, and
Exercise and Exercises--especially Breathing.
Various Avenues to Better Health
Some principles and details will be found in various books.[B] There is
no space here for more than a few suggestions.
Better Foods and Drinks
Years ago, the late Dr. Forbes Ross told me that, when he was medical
superintendent of a certain Asylum, he found that the patients were
very violent on Thursday afternoons. On Thursdays, at the mid-day
meal, they had Beef-Extract. He forbade this, and at once the Thursday
afternoon violence ceased. In my own case, the depression of years
ceased when I gave up flesh-foods and meat-extracts more than 23 years
ago.
This does not mean that such foods are a cause of non-happiness in all
cases. Still less does it mean that they are the sole cause, or even
the main cause, in all cases. Many haphazard “vegetarians” have been
miserable.
It rather means that some better Diet may be an important factor in
Happiness.
The general idea of Diet, for producing or increasing mental and
physical Well-Being, which includes Happiness, would surely be to get
first such a régime as shall clear out the clogging and depressing or
irritating toxins and waste-matters, and shall not add to them, but
shall re-build a clean and healthy body and mind by a better _Balance_
of the various Food Elements.
The Drinks, in order to increase the Well-Being and the subsequent
Happiness, should be cleansing, and should include the minimum of
undesirable elements (whether overstimulating, or narcotic).
There is no need here to explain how Food and Drink affect the mind.
We all know some of the depressing effects of “Liver,” Indigestion,
Constipation, etc., and the partial dependence of these troubles on the
Food and Drinks. But few who have not studied the subject as I have
been enabled to do, thanks partly to my work with the leading Clinical
Analytical Expert, Mr. C. H. Collings,[C] could guess how some of the
most common and respectable errors of Food and Drink--such as excess
of starchy and sugary stuff, of fruit, of tea or coffee or cocoa, and
so on--can produce non-Health and consequent Non-Happiness, partly
by affecting the Brain and the Solar Plexus through tissue-storage of
toxins and Toxœmia or an acid and poisoned bloodstream.
There are thousands who imagine that, because most of their “civilised”
acquaintances regularly take certain meals as a matter of course,
therefore these meals must of necessity be “all right”; not knowing
that Nature does not withhold from us her results according to
Law--often called her “punishments”--merely because large numbers of
other individuals are making similar mistakes! To be orthodox in life
is not the same thing as to be immune from the effects of orthodox
mistakes.
I could show letter after letter that tells how, beside better Foods
and Drinks, simple Water-treatments, and various Exercises have tended
to Health and Happiness. There are Exercises (like those in “Economy
of Energy,” pp. 79, 83, 86, 87, 90, 94, 97) which help improve the
Position of the body, the fulness and the rhythm of the Breathing, the
economy of the muscles, by Relaxing and so forth. There are Stretching
Exercises, Foot-Exercises, Trunk-Exercises, Athletic Exercises, and so
on.
But one or two items must suffice here, as mere examples of how
attention to physical acts may influence the state of the mind.
Better Position; Better Breathing; Less Muscular Tension
1. When the heart and lungs and stomach are sunk and sagged down, there
is a tendency to mental as well as to physical “depression.” The right
Exercises[D]--quite simple and easy--will draw the organs up into their
normal place again, and thus will help to remove “the dumps” and bring
Happiness.
2. Happiness has its own type of Breathing (as shown by the Pneumograph
and the registering cylinder-drum) quite different from the type when
there is fear or anger. If we establish as a habit the deepness and
fulness and rhythm of the Breathing that goes with Happiness, we are
half way towards removing Non-Happiness and getting Happiness itself.
3. When there is anger or restless worry, there is, regularly, some
muscular tension. Do away with this, and relax the muscles--the Art[E]
can be taught and learnt--and the tendency is for the unsatisfactory
feelings themselves to disappear.
A Warning about Stimulants with Re-action
But, in physical “cures,” we often have to distinguish carefully
between the temporary effects and the ultimate effects. Too often
there is recommended some way which produces almost immediate
exhilaration--or at least freedom from the sensation of worry or
depression--by driving toxins etc., which had been in the blood and had
thus tended towards depression, etc., not out of the body altogether,
but only out of the blood and into the tissues, where, as Mr. Collings
has been able to prove, they remain stored,[F] to work mischief in the
body and blood and mind in the future.
The passing sensations of ease, if not of positive satisfaction, may be
brought by such means as a cup of tea or coffee, some aspirin, a smoke,
a cold bath, and so on. But this is not an avenue to Happiness. It is,
rather, a patch that crosses the avenue to Happiness at one point, and
then leaves it again.
We Want the Habit of Happiness
What we want is not the flash of Happiness at heavy expense of future
Well-Being and Happiness, but the habit of Happiness. We want to keep
happy. We want to sacrifice, if need be, the immediate present for the
lasting future. As the author of “The Way of the Servant” says:
“_I do ask Renunciation of My children--Renunciation of the less._”
It is not every avenue to Happiness that is unpleasant at the start.
But it is quite likely that certain treatments--especially abstinence
from or moderation in various stimulants and narcotics--may be, for a
time, far from producing any Happiness.
When You are Happy, be Really Happy
It is well known (see “Alison’s History of Europe”) that those who have
lived for many years in hot climates are so saturated with warmth that
they keep warm for some time after they have come into a cooler climate
like ours. Somewhat similarly, whenever we _are_ happy, if we let our
whole self--every cell and atom within our body from tip to toe--become
saturated with Happiness whenever we feel happy, we should be able
to carry on the habit when the conditions seem less satisfactory; we
should still feel the glow. But we simply _must_ be and feel happy
“with all our mind and with all our soul and with all our strength,”
at the happy times. Without feverish excitement, we should thrill
throughout with Happiness, and be happy “all over,” as someone was said
to smile all over! It is a good phrase.
For why not let all the cells and fibres enjoy themselves with us? Why
keep the Happiness--as if we were autocratic and despotic Monarchs,
instead of Representatives of a Democratic Community--to ourselves? Why
not let the cells all “rejoice with us that rejoice”?
They will repay us a hundredfold in times of trouble and trial. They
will then thrust back Happiness to us, as the roots of a plant thrust
up stems and leaves and flowers in return for the warmth and light and
air and moisture and chemicals that they have absorbed.
If--as Virchow and many others hold--cells have some individuality and
some intelligence, will they not respond to our Happiness, at least as
much as you and I respond to the Happiness of our Nation and Empire
when there is good news and success of the whole of which we form a
particle?
To enjoy an Environment, or the memory of it, is a pleasant Avenue. If,
instead of rushing through our sweet holidays and hours of peace and
pleasantness, we “pause on every charm,” and concentrate our attention
on the Pleasantness, we can make the Environment, on which so many
people depend for their Health and Happiness, our own possession,
within our minds, by means of picture-memories, or sound-memories, or
even word-memories. Here is one, from J. Beattie:--
“_But who the melodies of morn can tell?
The wild brook babbling down the mountain-side;
The lowing herd, the sheepfold’s simple bell;
The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
In the low valley; echoing far and wide
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;
The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide;
The hum of bees, the linnet’s lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove._”
After all, what is our real Environment? Most people would say, at
once--the air, the building, the scenery, in which, and the people and
paraphernalia among which, we happen to be at any time. And these are
indeed part of our Environment.
But our true Environment is, first of all, the contents of our
mind, and especially that part of the contents--whether memories or
imaginations--to which we give most attention and interest; secondly,
the Divine influence in which, whether we recognise it or not, we “live
and move and have our being.”
And, chiefly, we live in whatever we think of or allow ourselves not to
refuse as residents in our mind.
I have said little, in these few pages, about what are ordinarily
regarded as Environmental helps. I rather wished to emphasise the
importance of keeping happy, and of using such means as we had always
or often with us. I could have written much about colours, music,
books, friendship, and so on. But I had to leave unwritten far more
than I have written here.
If these ideas help the reader to keep happy more consistently, less
spasmodically, and more independently of outside conditions, they will
have served their purpose.
Perhaps even the mere titles of some books may be of use towards this
end--“All’s Right with the World,” “Just Be Glad,” and “Keep Happy.”
To keep happy means enjoyment and ease, peace and poise, health and
fitness, during work-times and non-work times; it means more work
and better work; it means better opportunities and openings for our
activities in the future; it means better rest and sleep after work;
it means constant, all-round improvement for oneself and others. It
is, like Health, part of our duty towards God, our neighbour, and our
self, and the myriads of cell-lives working within us.
A Concluding Suggestion
It is not a bad plan to make a point of writing down every day (in a
note-book, or on slips of paper) some special reason why we should
keep happy. Mr. Arthur Knight and I have done this regularly for many
months, and have exchanged our records from time to time. The following
are a few out of many of our reasons. They are not arranged in any
particular order, but are put down just as we wrote them, from day to
day. We recommend every reader to try the practice.
* * * * *
KEEP HAPPY. When happiness is present, the petty things of life fail to
disturb and poison us.
KEEP HAPPY. This means living in the higher part of the mind, where
the air and light and warmth are greater, and where all good things
originate. Keep your thoughts in this happy region of yourself, and you
will not only get the right ideas--the ideas that you really need--but
you will draw other minds up to the same level.
KEEP HAPPY. The more you insist on--and persist in--keeping happy, the
more you will realise and be convinced how absolutely and progressively
beneficial Happiness is.
KEEP HAPPY, and the things that would, in the ordinary way, loom
large and important, and upset our peace and poise, either fade into
nothingness or else become obviously useful as training us to play the
game of life.
If we would be at our best, in body, mind, and spirit, we must keep
happy. Gloom and sorrow lessen our power to be our best and to do our
best.
KEEP HAPPY. There is nothing to be said against it. There is everything
to be said in favour of it.
KEEP HAPPY. Happiness is as much a duty towards God, our “Neighbours,”
and ourselves, as is Purity or Kindness or any other Virtue, and
Happiness makes every other Virtue easier and pleasanter.
However good a physical or mental “system” you may follow, and however
many excellent rules you may obey as to diet or exercise, and so on,
the rule “Keep Happy” is found to be a good addition to your daily
régime.
KEEP HAPPY. The happy spirit is a magnet, and draws all that is most
pleasant and profitable from all sources to seek you and to become
yours.
KEEP HAPPY when you are inclined to be ill-tempered or depressed or
anxious. Then your sight and your perspective will change, and you will
see the good in every one and every thing.
KEEP HAPPY, and give out Happiness. When we give out Happiness, we
always receive more blessings than we give to others.
KEEP HAPPY. Difficulties and troubles enlarge through unhappiness,
which is their fertilising manure.
KEEP HAPPY. To keep happy is good and God-like.
KEEP HAPPY. Whoever is happy, longs and tends to make all others
happier and happier.
KEEP HAPPY. To keep happy is true heroism--no less so than any
spasmodic act of courage.
KEEP HAPPY. Then every good quality within you will grow and flourish
and multiply and radiate.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[A] “Economy of Energy.”
[B] For instance--“Economy of Energy,” “How to Begin a Change of Diet,”
“First Recipes,” “Health without Meat,” “The E.M. System of Physical
Culture.”
[C] See “The Uric Acid Fetish,” “How Food Poisons Us.”
[D] See “Curative Exercises.”
[E] See “Curative Exercises,” p. 46.
[F] See “The Uric Acid Fetish” and “How Food Poisons Us.”
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Spelling has been retained as published. Inconsistencies in hyphenation
have been standardized.
The following printer errors have been changed.
=CHANGED FROM TO=
Page 33: “Whatsover things are” “Whatsoever things are”
Page 45: “or if the disadvantages” “or of the disadvantages”
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