This is a question we may find ourselves asking frequently. Or indeed, another way of approaching it is - am I an easy person to be around? Because let’s face it, upbeat and optimistic people are easier to be around. But the answer can be hard to pin down.

To some extent, it has to do with temperament but thankfully a lot has to do with attitude - which is a choice!

For starters, cheerfulness and optimism are not exactly the same thing. Optimism has to do with time, with the future, and with hope. An optimistic person - as we all know - looks at things sunny-side up. They avoid focusing on the negative side of things, and everything about their attitude is Gung Ho, upbeat, a Can-Do mentality.

In contrast, we are all familiar with the pessimist, the one that crushes things before they even get going. The pessimist can create that heavy-laden feeling even on a bright summer’s day. The optimist, by contrast, can build a castle even on a wet day out of sand. (I exaggerate, but you know what I mean)

You might recall that little lyrical poem entitled ‘Hope’ by Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all…

One point that she makes in this little lyric is once hope takes possession of a soul, it infuses a type of consistent music within that sustains it through every difficulty. This is a lovely idea. Don’t we all yearn for that feeling? I just wonder as I write this blog post whether cheerfulness springs from Optimism, from Hope, or is it the other way around?

If we live our lives with a general expectation that good things will happen, or we come to believe that the future for us will be favourable because we can control important outcomes, then maybe that generates cheerfulness? The “clearest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness.” - Montaigne.

Daily goal setters

Recently I bought a new notebook to use as a daily journal. I didn’t notice until I got home that it had imprinted on the cover, ‘Daily Goal Setter’.

Then when I started to use it, I noticed on the top of every page -

“3 things to be grateful for...”

“Daily affirmations, I am…”

And at the end of each page - “Great things that happened today…”, together with a quotation for each day.

One of the first quotations or sayings that I read was the following:

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”

The whole thing got me thinking. It got me thinking about actually cultivating a habit of affirming who I am, and the daily value of what I am doing. Also, the habit of being grateful for the small things in the day or developing the ability to look out for and actually acknowledge those small, but great things, that happened today.

We can change who we can be in the future, by allowing space within us for positive emotions. Some of these emotions consist of joy, gratitude, love, hope, awe at the wonder of life and nature, I think we have to want to do this. To be determined that yes this is what I want to become, a person who makes opportunities in the day to allow positive emotions into my space.

Maybe one thing that can help us in doing this is to stop our minds from wandering back to the past, or forward to the future. To just live in the present moment fully. As we all know this is much easier to say, or to write down than to actually practise and live out fully. But if we can develop a type of flow and try and immerse ourselves fully in what we are doing, we find the freedom to be cheerful and optimistic, and life suddenly becomes easier.

The daily resonance in all this…

Cheerfulness has an energy that lights up the face, lights up the day, brightens things. A cheerful face is like a warm fire on a bitterly cold day - it cheers the heart and bones and makes us feel alive again. We are refreshed in the presence of cheerful people.

I think cheerfulness and optimism can make us more creative - we’re more inclined to take a risk and create something new when our minds are free of hassles and not encumbered with the weight of many things. And cheerfulness is a multiplier - a happy person spreads a spirit of joy far and wide. Giving that joy and positivity means it comes back to us a hundred-fold.

Victor Frankl, the famous Austrian psychotherapist, once said that everything can be taken from you except the freedom to choose one’s attitude in a given circumstance.

Maybe every time we lose our peace, or our sense of humour, or allow fear or sadness to rob us of our joy, then maybe we need to remember we possess the power to change our attitude, and therefore possess the power to change those things.

George Bernard Shaw once said: “You are the window through which you see the world, so it is better to keep it clean and bright.”

Cheerfulness is a gift to ourselves…and to the world

Since we all have to spend the remainder of our time on this earth living with ourselves, let’s ensure that we have, and we are good company. Cheerfulness is a gift we give to ourselves, but it is also a gift we give to other people. We can live in the memory of others for a long time because of our cheer.

As the Russian writer, Chekov reminds us “People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy”.