The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up," the eminent US writer and outspoken critic of America’s 1898 controversial colonization of the Philippines Mark Twain once said. In a recent speech to the Rotary Club of Mandaluyong on Oct. 21 at Edsa Shangri-La Plaza, I tested the patience of the audience by discussing what I believe are the economic, social, emotional, psychological, physical, political, moral, existential, metaphysical and spiritual advantages of cheerfulness. Surprisingly, they claimed to have been cheered out of their sleepiness!
My unsolicited advice to our besieged, battered, glum-faced and much-maligned but indefatigable President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is to cheer up, for the worst is yet to come. Just do it, Mrs. President – grin and bear all the brickbats even as the kitchen sink is thrown at her without losing her cool in public. There’s a Tagalog saying: "Ang magalit ay talo."
In the despicable netherworld of Philippine politics, the worst is yet to come in terms of blistering conflicts and rancor. Let us just step aside and allow our politicians to shoot each other (and hopefully exterminate each other), but I urge all of us to preserve our sanity by remaining steadfast in cheerfulness. If we cannot yet do any drastic changes, let us just laugh at the whole corrupt political circus and not be sidetracked in our productive activities and plans.
I sincerely hope that whoever occupies Malacañang Palace, she or he should try her or his best to be the cheerleader-in-chief of the republic. Apart from excellent leadership, we also need cheerfulness from our top leaders. Signs should be put up in government offices and schools nationwide saying: "Pangit ang mga nakasimangot" or "Only monkeys frown."
Those being tested had difficulties when instructed to give an opposite response to the expressions displayed. Instinctively, the subjects smiled for each smiling image they were shown, and frowned when they saw a frowning image. Thus, if we kick off a national cheerfulness campaign and encourage more smiles, this could be uncontrollably contagious and could subvert this nation’s age-old culture of pessimism inculcated by Spanish colonial misrule.
To quote a New York Times article dated April 19, 1987: "You know the old adage that it only takes 10 muscles to smile but it takes 100 to frown." The same newspaper, on Dec. 16, 1986, quoted Sonny Smith, Auburn’s basketball coach, on his comment on his dour counterpart at the University of Alabama: ‘’It takes 15 muscles to smile and 65 muscles to frown. This leads me to believe Wimp Sanderson is suffering from muscle fatigue.’’ If I was the Alabama basketball coach, I would have retorted back, "Those scientists who keep count of facial muscles have way too much free time on their hands, and if frowning uses more muscles, at least it helps us burn more calories!"
Seriously, a smile is not only an external proof of cheerfulness. Even if we have to fake it, the act of smiling can help lift our own morale. To President GMA and all others who might be feeling hurt or down, smile even if you don’t feel like it, the act itself can help us feel good.
Cheerfulness promotes health and longevity. It also makes people more attractive physically. Bitterness and rancor, if kept smoldering inside, have been proven to have fatal consequences. In the Chinese language, there is the concept "chi shi" in Mandarin, or "khi si" in Hokkien, which literally means "angering oneself to death." Canadian physician William Osler said: "Courage and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the rough places in life, but will enable you to bring comfort and help to the weak-hearted and will console you in the sad hours."
Why is it that people who have fervent religious faith in God have been scientifically shown to recover from illnesses faster or cope with tragedies with less traumas? Why do people who love music and appreciate the arts, people who do not harbor rancor and grudges, tend to look younger and live longer lives?
Even if all the doomsayers, pessimists, naysayers and grumpy people on earth are in the end proven correct in their dire scenarios, at least, those who have cultivated the discipline of cheerfulness would have led a more enjoyable life. You might say it’s just consuelo de bobo, but isn’t it qualitatively better to spend our earthly existence with less bitterness and with the glimmer of hope always burning in our hearts up to the very end?
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Austrian Jewish Holocaust survivor Dr. Victor Frankl wrote: "Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." His famed book grew out of his heart-wrenching experiences in Nazi death camps. Watching who did and did not survive, he concluded that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was right: "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how." Frankl witnessed that fellow death camp prisoners who had hopes of being reunited with loved ones, or who had projects they felt a need to complete, or who had great faith, had better chances of survival than those who had lost all hope.
While once doing forced labor of laying railway tracks by the Nazis, a fellow prisoner wondered out loud where their wives were and Dr. Frankl then realized that his wife was present within him. He later wrote: "The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved."
Good cheer is something more than faith in the future. It is ultimately the boundless capacity to love and to forgive. It’s about having genuine gratitude for the past. It’s about having no regrets. It’s also having joy and enthusiasm for the present. Let us search for meaning in our lives and face each day with unshakable cheerfulness. Let us be masters of our destiny. It takes courage to be hopeful and cheerful in these trying times. Life is too short to be wasted. Cheer up!