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HOW TO BE
CHEERFUL

D. F. Miller, C.SS.R.

Published by

LIGUORIAN PAMPHLETS
REDEMPTORIST FATHERS

Liguori, Mo.



Too few people realize that cheerful-

ness is a virtue that can and should

be acquired by every Christian . Read

about it> and see if you possess it.

Imprimi Potest:

John N. McCormick, C.SS.R.

Provincial, St. Louis Province,

Redemptorist Fathers

April 14, 1959

Imprimatur:

St. Louis, April 17, 1959

© Joseph E. Ritter
Archbishop of St. Louis



HOW TO BE

CHEERFUL

D. F. Miller, C.SS.R.

One of the signs of moral sickliness

in today’s world is the lack of what

may be called the virtue of cheerful-

ness in many people. We do not speak
of those extreme cases in which this

lack takes the form of the mental

disease called melancholia, for the

cure of which drastic measures must

be attempted. We are referring to the
thousands of otherwise normal people

who present a consistently glum,

gloomy, mopy attitude toward life and

everybody around them. They have

never learned why or how to be

cheerful.

-3



Some of these gloomy persons will,

when checked or admonished in any

friendly way, rise quickly to a defense

of their lack of cheerfulness. The de-

fense may take different forms.

For some its basis is self-pity. Their

sorrows and misfortunes overwhelm

them. “How can I be cheerful,” they

say, “when I have so much to suffer?”

Widows who have lost their husbands,

perhaps years before, are subject to

this kind of defense. Also business

men who have never realized their

ambitions to reach the top in income

and position.

Others defend their gloominess on

the ground that the world is in a mess,

that war may break out at any time,

that nuclear bombs may fall at any

moment. “How can I be cheerful,”

they say, “when the whole world may

blow up around me?”

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Still others are prompted by envy

to refuse even an effort at being cheer-

ful. They are always sad because they

are always thinking of the many good

things others have which they are

denied. “How can I be cheerful,” they

say, “when so many worse people than

I am have so many better things to

enjoy?”

Finally, some defend their lack of

cheerfulness on the ground of their

feelings. Temperamentally they are

inclined toward sadness, and they take

the position that they should let their

temperament rule them. They say: “I

don’t feel cheerful, and therefore I

would be a hypocrite if I acted as if I

were cheerful.”

Despite these, and any other de-

fenses that may come to the minds of

gloomy people, this statement can be

made and proved: cheerfulness is a

virtue; therefore it is a habit that can

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be acquired; furthermore, when cor-

rectly defined and understood, it is a

virtue that every human being should

try to acquire.

That it may be correctly under-

stood, cheerfulness should be analyzed

under the headings:

1. Definition and explanation of

cheerfulness.

2. The basis of cheerfulness.

3. Defects of cheerfulness.

4. Aids to cheerfulness.

1. DEFINITION

The English word cheerfulness is

perhaps best represented, in the class-

ic Latin listings of virtues, by the

word affabilitas

,

which has as its ob-

vious English translation, affability .

St. Thomas Aquinas places affabil-

ity, which we are calling “cheerful-

ness/’ under the general heading of

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the cardinal virtue of justice. In this

very general sense, justice is the vir-

tue that prompts us to give to others

what is their due under any sense of

duty or obligation.

Thus, for example, under justice

come such virtues as religion (giving

to God the honor and service due to

Him from His creatures); patriotism

(giving to one’s country the love and

service that it deserves); love of par-

ents and family, etc. In its strictest

sense, justice means respecting the

rightful possessions of others.

Among the virtues that in some

way fulfill the general definition of

justice (giving to others what is due

to them under any title), St. Thomas

places affability. We are obliged to
help and not hinder others around us

in the world on their way toward

heaven. We are to help the needy by
our alms; we are to help the erring by

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our urgings that they give up evil. We
also have the obligation to help all

whom we know or meet by our kind-

liness, pleasantness, affability of man-

ner. This last is the virtue of cheer-

fulness .

The fact need hardly be labored

that cheerfulness of attitude and man-

ner is a great help to those who come

into contact with us. A sour, silent,
grumpy-looking person makes us feel

uneasy, and intensifies our own temp-

tations to give way to sadness. A cheer-
ful person lifts up our spirits, invites

our confidence, increases our hope of

serving God well. This last is especi-

ally true in the case of persons who

suffer under handicaps and misfor-

tunes and yet remain cheerful. Such

are a real tonic to our own spirits.

2. BASIS OF CHEERFULNESS

While it could hardly be said that

cheerfulness is one of the most impor-

— 8 —



tant of the virtues, it can be said that

it is a manifestation of other virtues

that are exceedingly important for the

salvation of one’s soul. Three such im-

portant virtues come together to make

a person cheerful in the true sense of

the word. Again it must be repeated

that cheerfulness can be acquired;

and it will be acquired in the meas-

ure that these three important virtues

that underlie it are put into practice.

1 )
The first is the virtue of hope.

This is a supernatural virtue infused

at baptism, but it requires study, ef-

fort, repeated actions to become ef-

fective. It is the virtue by which we

keep our eyes fixed on heaven as the

goal of our lives, made certainly at-

tainable by the merits and promises

and fidelity of Jesus Christ. With the

virtue of hope one always has some-

thing wonderful to look forward to,

and this is an indispensable condition

of cheerfulness.

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Anyone who succumbs to the vices

opposed to hope will find it impossi-

ble to be truly cheerful. Despair is a

vice opposed to hope; it is surrender

to the thought that heaven cannot be

attained, and that the sufferings of

hell are inevitable. Gloom is the first

fruit of despair.

Secularism is also a vice opposed to

hope; it is the belief that there is no

happiness beyond the grave, and that

one must capture every possible de-

light here in this world. It leads to

sadness and lack of cheerfulness be-

cause there are no delights in this

world that can fully satisfy the human

heart. It also leads to other well-

known causes of sadness, such as en-

vy, avarice, impurity.

2 )
The second virtue that must be

cultivated as a basis of cheerfulness

is fortitude . This is the virtue that

induces one to face the inevitable sor-

rows of life, and above all death itself

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in the service of God, with courage

and patience. Fortitude looks to the

sufferings of Christ on His cross, and

counts its own as small in compari-

son. Fortitude, combined with hope,

looks to the happiness of heaven, and

counts even the worst sufferings as a

small price to pay for that inconceiv-

able reward.

The vices opposed to fortitude are

especially cowardice, self-pity and

lack of trust in the goodness of God.

Wherever you find these vices, you

find people who cannot be cheerful.

They are constantly grumbling against

God and everybody around them be-

cause of the sufferings they have to

endure.

3) The third virtue on which cheer-

fulness is built is that of fraternal

charity. This is the virtue by which,

for the love of God, we love and want

to help all our neighbors, especially

those whose lives are in some way in-

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termingled with our own. As has been

said before, there are many ways of

helping our neighbors. Too many

people forget that one way of helping

others is by an attitude of cheerful-

ness. Basically, it is selfishness, the op-

posite of fraternal charity, that makes

many persons withdraw into a shell,

present a dour face to those around

them, go into long and sad silences,

and rarely utter a kind or helpful

word to someone else.

3. DEFECTS OF CHEERFULNESS

While cheerfulness or affability is

a virtue that everybody should try to

cultivate, it is also, like every other

virtue, subject to excesses and defects

which spoil the virtue. Consider some

of these defects as they are commonly

found in the characters of people.

1) Lack of seriousness

,

when it is

time to be serious. It is not the virtue

of cheerfulness to be incapable of giv-

— 12 —



ing serious attention to the important

duties of life. It is a false and danger-

ous cheerfulness to make light of one’s

serious sins, to avoid all thoughts of

judgment and hell, to say, as some

people do when reminded of the con-

sequences of their grave sins, “Oh

well, if I’m going to hell, I know that

I’ll have plenty of company there.” It

is misguided cheerfulness that makes

some people giddy and distracting to

others and ready with jokes and jests

in church or on other serious occa-

sions. Extroverts, those of sanguinic

temperament, lovers of gaiety and so-

cial life, must be especially on guard

against this defect of cheerfulness.

2) Lack of sympathy . It is a great

defect of cheerfulness for a person to

be incapable of suffering with others

and sympathizing with their sorrows.

Those who have this defect will try

to avoid people who have just suffer-

ed a great misfortune or bereavement.

— 13 —



or, if they do meet them, will mani-

fest by their attitude that they are

not going to permit themselves to be

disturbed by the sorrows of others.

Actually, cheerfulness need not al-

ways be expressed by smiles and

laughter and light-minded chatter. In

the presence of sorrow and tragedy it

adopts a serious mien and true signs

of sharing in the sorrows of others.

But at the same time it expresses it-

self in the solid motives for hope and

fortitude and patience that God has

provided for all whom He asks to

suffer.

3) Lack of realism. Those who lack

the ability to be sympathetic with

others usually are wanting in a sense

of realism well. They make light of

the tears and grieving of others. They

think up and propose exaggerated

and fantastic reasons for not grieving.

If a person is said by doctors to be

— 14 —



dying of cancer, they say that the doc-

tors don’t know what they are talking

about. They refuse to permit any of

their friends to face grim facts that

are a cause of sorrow.

This has come to be called ‘Tolly-

anna cheerfulness,” a phrase taken

from a character created in fiction

who was so sweetly cheerful about

everything that ever happened that

the effect is more gagging than in-

spirational.

4) Lack of consistency . There are

some people who can be wonderfully

cheerful at times, sometimes for cer-

tain periods of time, but who at other

times and during other extended peri-

ods of time give way to unchecked

sadness and melancholy. They do not

possess the virtue of cheerfulness;

rather they are ruled entirely by their

feelings. Worse still is the habit into

which some individuals have fallen.

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of being cheerful in the presence of

some of their relatives and friends,

but sour and morose and gloomy in

the presence of others.

This defect of cheerfulness is often

to be found in the changing attitudes

that people adopt toward their im-

mediate families and those with whom

they mingle outside their home.

There are husbands, for example,

who are celebrated for their cheerful-

ness at work, among their cronies, and

even with chance acquaintances on

the street, but who present to their

wives and children nothing but an at-

titude of moroseness and silence and

gloom. They are creatures of feeling,

sometimes even neurotics, who have

never learned to rise above their feel-

ings.

It is true that control of the feel-

ings is one of the most difficult of all

human accomplishments. Even the

— 16 —



most solid and virtuous individuals

will sometimes find that they cannot

hide their feelings from others, much

as they would like to. But the ideal

should be recognized by all, and one’s

efforts to rise up to it should be ob-

vious. The ideal is to be always the

same toward others, and the same

toward all others: kindly, affable, sym-

pathetic, encouraging, in a word,

cheerful. It must simply be taken for

granted that feelings will often run

contrary to such an external attitude,

and that there is no hypocrisy in be-

ing ruled by the will rather than by

the feelings.

5. Lack of sobriety . There is an un-

healthy form of cheerfulness that some

people practice only through depend-

ence on dangerous stimulants of one

kind or another. The most commonly

used of such stimulants is alcohol.

Everybody has met or heard of some-

one who can become cheerful, even

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unpleasantly so, only when he is

drinking. Drink is an escape from

reality for such persons; without it

they see nothing but reasons for sad-

ness in their surroundings; with it

they become boisterous, friendly, op-

timistic, and ultimately foolish and

degraded.

Thus husbands who are never con-

tented or cheerful at home will often

turn out to be “the life of the party”

in a favorite tavern, or with a group

of friends over a round of drinks.

This unhealthy and temporary cheer-

fulness is always a presage of tragedy

to come.

4. HELPS TO CHEERFULNESS

Nothing in the way of aids to cheer-

fulness can substitute for the basic vir-

tues described above as the essential

reason for cheerfulness. Without

strong hope and trust in God and ex-

pectation of heaven, without stalwart

- 18 -



fortitude built into one’s character,

and without an urgent sense of the

obligation of fraternal charity, what

seems to be cheerfulness in any per-

son will actually turn out to be spoil-

ed by many defects.

But there are helps at hand for the

strengthening of these virtues and

therefore of the habit of being cheer-

ful. The first and most important is

meditation and, what can be a form

of meditation, spiritual reading. This

simply means thinking or reading

about God’s goodness, about the love

shown in the passion of Christ, about

the promises God has made to all His

followers, about noble examples of

holiness in the lives of others, and

thus being aroused to desire and pray

for trust in God, fortitude in sorrow,

the ability to sympathize with and

encourage others.

Over and above these basic things,

it is a great aid to cheerfulness to

— 19 —



analyze one’s own temperament and

to know what are its strengths and its

weaknesses.

For example, if you find that you

are predominantly sanguinic, that is,

inclined to talkativeness, friendliness,

gaiety and social life, you will find

yourself lacking not so much cheer-

fulness but seriousness and sympathy,

and may neglect duties to your fam-

ily in order to satisfy your craving for

the gaiety provided by taverns and

pals.

Or, if you find by analysis that you

are predominantly choleric, that is,

tending to want to dominate others,

to give orders, to be the leader in any

work, to resent opposition, to anger

easily, then you will find that you

will feel cheerful only when you are

in charge of things. When others are

placed over you, or when they oppose

you, you will find yourself feeling

slighted and injured, and inclined to

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give off sparks of resentment, anger,

bitterness, sarcasm — the opposite of
cheerfulness. It will take great will

power and the help of God to make

cheerfulness a habit even in the face

of humiliation and opposition.

If you find yourself to be melan-

cholic by temperament, you have the

hardest task of all to acquire and

practice cheerfulness. The melanchol-

ic temperament is inclined toward

sadness, sensitiveness, aloofness. Per-

sons given such a predominant tem-

perament by God will rarely be able

completely to hide it. At the same

time they have an advantage in that

prayer and meditation are easier for

them than for others, and, if they use

these means rightly, they will help

them to discount nine-tenths of their

leanings toward sadness and develop

in them the virtue of cheerfulness.

If you must call yourself phlegmat-

ic, without strong feelings of either

- 21 -



enthusiasm or depression, cheerful-

ness will not be difficult for you, but

it can, if untrained, become self-

centered and lacking in sympathy for

others.

There is one final aid to cheerful-

ness that is practically indispensable.

It is the cultivation of a sense of hu-

mor. This is not to be confused with

the gift of being witty, of being able

to tell humorous stories, of being able

to make others laugh. One can have a

sense of humor and not be a good

joker or storyteller at all.

A sense of humor is the acquired
ability to see contrasts and inconsist-

encies in life, especially in one’s own

life, and to be amused by them. With-

out a sense of humor, a person may

be constantly sad over his lack of

many material comforts and luxuries;

with a sense of humor another person

will see how foolish such sadness is

- 22 -



in the light of the truth that he has

an immortal soul destined one day to

enjoy the priceless riches of heaven.

Thus a sense of humor keeps one

from taking this passing world too

seriously and inspires him to laugh

at himself when he finds himself

tempted to do so; it projects this

same amusement over the inconsist-

encies in his own life into his conver-

sation with others, so that they too

are enabled at times to smile when

they feel like weeping.

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Published by

LIGUORIAN PAMPHLETS

REDEMPTORIST FATHERS

LIGUORI. MISSOURI

8 Printed in U.S.A.