Welcome to The Gist. Today we're talking about cheerfulness. The writer and painter, Herm Albright once quipped that ‘A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.’ Sometimes it seems like there are people who are just always cheerful and have a positive attitude. The rest of us might look enviously at them and wonder if they were just born that way! Personality does play a role in determining our overall mood. But we have more say in our happiness than we might think.
After all, feelings can be contagious. Simply smiling at one another costs nothing and its surprising what a big impact such a little thing can have. When we are around positive people, we tend to absorb those good feelings. For anyone who has watched the show Ted Lasso, the wildly successful feel-good comedy of the pandemic, Ted's genuine good humour breaks down even the staunchest of cynics.
But similarly, we can also feed off each other's negativity. I am most acutely aware of this around my children, whose mood can be directly affected by mine. So as a mother, I have tried, often unsuccessfully, to be a cheerful presence. But children are smart. They know when we are simply putting on a happy face. That’s why pretending to be cheerful is not healthy but choosing to be cheerful is constructive. It is a small but significant distinction, because the element of choice is empowering.
Pretending is about stuffing our feelings and slapping on a smile. Not dealing with tough feelings can lead to insincere, toxic positivity and create anxiety because we are denying our true emotions. Choosing to be cheerful, however, is about honouring our moods, but also knowing that there is an enduring, deeper self that emerges by working through these feelings.
When we are experiencing big negative emotions, we can become reactive, lash out or melt down. Or we can practice choosing a more constructive response. Maybe that means taking some quiet time to ourselves or walking off our frustrations or nourishing ourselves with healthy food and rest. With time, we can get better at realizing that our bad moods don't last forever. And that we have a great deal of agency over how quickly we move through them.
Psychotherapist and author Nick Wignall sees cheerfulness not as an inate trait reserved for the lucky few but as a virtue that can be cultivated. He describes it as a verb, an active engagement of our rational minds that allows us to proactively choose positive behaviours that we value. While we may not have control over feelings that bubble up, Nick says that 'we can change the way we feel indirectly by changing how we think and behave, two things we actually have direct control over'.
Of course, it’s easy to be cheerful when life is going well. But by exercising more agency in how we manage our low feelings, we can behave more cheerfully even when things are challenging. Not only does this type of practice sustain us internally, but it impacts others in our environment. It's surprising how a little good cheer can quickly grow, benefit and be reflected by other people around us. So, as we go through this week, maybe we can take a more active role in bringing a little bit more lightness and cheer to a world that very much needs it. Have a great week and see you next time on The Gist.
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