Essentials

When I muse about a cheerful countenance, I wonder how to make my face look joyful when my insides just feel normal. Not joyful and absolutely not miserable. Just normal. I think we should all reflect the joy that we, deep down, feel just to be alive and part of this amazing world. But I think some of us, okay me, forget and are just lazy about the image that we present to our brothers and sisters on this earth. And we owe each other more than that. When we see joy we tend to feel joy. And around and around it goes.

So, my musings lead to this. Sleep. It's essential and when we're tired, it's very hard to radiate great happiness. We need our sleep. All of it, not just some of it. I have a hard time going to bed early at night. I don't know if I'm afraid I'll suffer some sleeplessness or if I'm afraid I'll miss something; but, I tend to stay up way too late every night. So the first thing I'll do is change that. I really believe that sleep changes everything. It changes how ambitious we feel each day and, most of all, it helps provide us with the self discipline we need to accomplish the things that are truly important to us, like a cheerful countenance.

So starting tonight, I'll be in bed by eleven p.m. This is a challenging week to start this new habit because I'm on vacation and not doing any traveling, but if I can do it, I know that my vacation will be much more rewarding and productive. And I'll be a lot more likely to wear that cheerful countenance that will be a blessing to my family and everybody else I encounter.

We'll see how that works out.

When Everybody's Cheerful and Friendly

One day at work, as I started my appointed rounds, I couldn't help but notice that everybody I encountered was cheerful and friendly. The weather was turning from Winter to Spring and that added to the good feeling of the day.

I mused for a couple of hours about what was putting so many people in such a good mood, and then I saw my favorite mail carrier fall down. And after that, nobody was friendly anymore.

And I realized the rewards of a cheerful countenance. When everybody was cheerful and friendly, they were reacting to my happy face due to the weather turning. After that fall, I didn't wear a cheerful countenance anymore and the people I encountered weren't cheerful and friendly at all.

I read in the bible once that a man who has a wife with a cheerful countenance is truly blessed. That's not a quote but it went something like that. And I think many men subconsciously rate the success of their marriage, either at any given moment or in the long term, by the general appearance of their wife's countenance. And this subconscious rating will have a very big effect on his mood and on the general health of the marriage. Don't get me wrong, I think I have a very successful marriage but it might be because Mr. Right is used to my countenance by now. After all he's had 41 years to live with it.

So I think we should try an experiment. Some people just naturally look happy and cheerful (or wait, maybe they work at it) and some people have a countenance like mine (not happy and cheerful). I think those of us that don't naturally possess a cheerful countenance should try for a day or two to put on a REALLY, REALLY happy face and see what happens.

I'm going to try it soon and when I do, I'll let you know how it turns out for me.