Cheerfulness

Garrison Keillor has a lot to say about cheerfulness in his new book, titled (yes) Cheerfulness...

Cheerfulness is a great American virtue, the essence of who we are when we’re cooking with gas: rise and shine, qwitcher bellyaching, step up to the plate and swing for the fences, do your best and forget the rest, da doo ron ron ron da doo ron ron.

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The uncertainty of tomorrow makes today rather cheerful. Beautiful, in fact. This is our
time. We’re lucky to have been born when we were, any later and we wouldn’t know how lucky we are, any earlier and we’d be deceased.
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Cheer up. Put your bare feet on the floor in the morning and meet the world’s
indifference with a light heart. Pull on your pants, buckle your belt, get your head on
straight and go to the work you were put here to do. The world will be improved by your enthusiasm.
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The secret of cheerfulness is to Delete. Cut out watching golf or basketball on TV, loud
restaurants, science fiction, most of Florida, the Book of Revelation, broadcast
journalism, and irony, and you’ll be much happier.
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Gloom is just like carbuncles:
Yours is the same as your uncle’s Whereas the hilarious
Is wildly various
Like the wildlife found in the jungles.
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Work is crucial. Usefulness can lead to genius. Edison invented the talking machine to
help execs dictate letters and Caruso sang into it and Jimmie Rodgers and King Oliver
and the seeds of jazz and blues blew around the world.
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Happiness is circumstantial, bliss is brief, joy is for angels and small children,
contentment is fragile and easily interrupted, gaiety doesn’t happen until eighty, and for jubilation you need to find a good roller coaster and someone to ride it with you and
scream, but cheerfulness is a choice, like choosing chocolate rather than a spoonful of
mud. Take the chocolate.
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Cheerfulness is a choice. Every morning you’re offered Anxiety, Bitterness,
Cheerfulness, Dread, Ennui, and Forgetfulness. It’s a new day, there is work to be done, you are loved, the coffee is on, so choose C. C is always the correct.