Part 7

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.