I was thinking (again) about cheerfulness recently while putting together a long to-do list — which is how I feel prepared, if not always cheerful. Garrison Keillor — the soon-to-be-retired host of A Prairie Home Companion — has written that,

“Cheerfulness is a choice, like choosing what color socks to wear, the black or the red. Happiness is something that occurs, or it doesn’t, and don’t hold your breath. Joy is a theological idea, pretty rare among us mortals and what many people refer to as “joy” is what I would call ‘bragging.’…Euphoria is a drug.”  Keillor suggests that cheerfulness is a…“habit you assume in the morning and hang on to as best you can for the rest of the day….that spiritual awareness that Buddhism holds up as enlightenment, in which one does not covet more than one’s small lot, one is free of animosity, and one lives in the immediate present, day by day, without dread of what might befall.”

That sounds about right to me.  And while I’ve written this as a reminder to myself, it strikes me as a good habit that others may want to cultivate when that to-do list is too long for the time available.

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB