With winter’s shortened days of daylight and lengthened days of nightlight comes Seasonal Affective Disorder, a form of depression. Then what better occasion to overcome the “winter blahs” and begin or continue a lifetime of optimistic behavior than during the holiday season!
World War I had a ditty with just the right words: “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.” The musical “Bye, Bye Birdie” had a song with even better phrasing:“Gray skies are gonna clear up. Put on a happyface…you’ll look so good that you’ll be glad ya decided to smile! … And spread sunshine all over the place, just put on a happy face!”
Indeed smiles and laughter go together and provide tonic for the body and the soul! Kermit the Frog is quoted as having said “Every time you find some humor in a difficult situation, you win.”
Let’s all strive to become the person who sees rainbows when it rains or who seeks out stars amidst the darkness.
Renee Swanson, Sun City’s special events coordinator, informs us in our September/2014 Lifestyles Magazine: “A study of centenarians showed that they all had learned to take life’s trials in stride and not take themselves too seriously.”
My mother had another way of putting it when she often repeated the phrase “Bounce with the waves.”
Dr. David Song, plastic surgeon and Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Hospitals, answers the oft-asked question “Does it take fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown?”
Counting only the muscles that make significant contributions, the doctor concludes that smiling does take one more muscle than frowning (12 vs. 11). He does add, however, that the results do not necessarily mean that smiling is harder to do. World Smile Day, begun in 1999 by the creator of the Smiley Face, Harvey Ball, takes place yearly on October 3rd. Mr. Ball asks that we turn our frowns into smiles.
To help make that facial transformation easier, Tamara Star, a life coach, speaker, and writer for The Huffington Post’s Women (Daily Transformations) blog, posted the following advice on Nov. 18: “Forty percent of our capacity for happiness is within our power to change.” She continues that we all have bad days, even weeks, when we fall down into negative ways of thinking. “The difference between a happy and an unhappy life is how often and how long we stay there,” Ms. Starr adds.
Here, then, are her suggested seven qualities of the happy person. First, a happy person is aware that life can be hard but tends to bounce through hard times with an attitude of curiosity, not victimhood.
Second, a happy person’s initial impression is one of trust of his fellow men/women, not suspicion of them.
Third, the happy person knows that our world has problems but keeps his/her eye on what appears to be going right on our planet.
Fourth, a happy person believes in unlimited possibilities and doesn’t get bogged down by thinking one person’s good fortune limits his/her own possible outcomes.
Fifth, a happy person takes steps daily to achieve his/her goals but realizes in the end, there’s very little total control over what life throws his/her way.
Sixth, the happy person thinks positively when fear of the future comes into play. He/she tries to find an action to prevent the fear or worry from taking over his/her life.
Seventh, while an unhappy person lives in the past, a happy person lives in the now and dreams about the future. Tamara Star concludes with the following advice: “Walk, fall down, get back up again, repeat. It’s in the getting back up again where all the difference resides.”
