I mentioned in a previous post that The Happiness Project was life-changing for me in 2010. It’s hard to explain why exactly. But one of the reasons is that the book made me think and re-evaluate things. One of the things I had to actually change was my attitude toward optimistic, cheery people. I used to think that those really bubbly, always positive people were shallow, dumb and downright annoying. (I’m being honest). But then I read the following: “It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” (G. K. Chesterton) In my effort to be a happier, more accepting, appreciative person, I realized that it is actually harder to be positive than negative. Cheerful optimists are not actually dumb; they just work harder to find the good in every situation. It turns out that to be negative and pessimistic is the easy road. In fact, I recently heard one of those perpetually positive people (who used to annoy me to no end) confess that she found herself in circumstances this past year where it was really hard for her to remain positive; she had to really work at it. Hmmm, who’d have thought?!
However, I do still maintain that there are oblivious people out there who always smile and think that things will work out. But why should I stress about them? Things usually DO work out for them just by dumb luck.
