How to Stay Well
	The Happiness Cure <  Previous Contents Next  >

Health is harmony. Disease is discord. The more perfect the harmony in the human system, the better the health; and happiness invariably produces harmony. When the forces and elements of mind and body work together in harmony wholesome conditions are naturally produced; and if the creation of wholesome conditions is continued for any reasonable length of time, all disease will finally disappear. There can be no discord when the harmony is full and complete; there can be no darkness when the light is sufficiently strong.

The happier you are, the less energy you waste, because added happiness means added harmony, and the system wastes no energy while it continues in perfect harmony. The less energy you waste the more vitality you will possess, and the greater your supply of vital energy, the less liable you are to sickness. When your system is absolutely full of vital energy, you will contract no disease whatever, not even diseases that are said to be contagious. Retain all your energy and you will never be sick; but to this end harmony must be perfect, and perfect harmony is possible only when happiness is continuous.

When the human system is thoroughly harmonious, every particle of food that is taken will contribute its full nourishing power, and to properly nourish the system is one of the chief secrets of health. In the average system, however, a great deal of the food taken is not digested, there being too much discord among the digestive forces, and, therefore, actual starvation obtains in the midst of plenty.

There are millions of cells in the majority of human bodies that are daily starved to death, regardless of the fact that three full meals are eaten every day. Those starved cells wither up and become waste matter, clogging the system, thus giving extra work to the forces of elimination and reconstruction. And the more energy you use up in getting rid of useless matter, the less energy you will have for your work, your life and your thought.

A fit of anger, or prolonged excitement, is frequently followed by a cold; and the reason is that agitation, in every form, tends to prevent proper digestion and assimilation. Most of the food that is taken at the time, or that has been taken within the last eight hours, will simply become waste matter; and all the starved cells will, in like manner, become waste matter; the system is thus clogged from two sources, and what we call a cold must naturally follow. The system, however, would have been clean and well and properly nourished through and through if there had been no anger or excitement, but harmony and happiness instead.

There would be but few cases of indigestion if happiness and harmony were continuous in every mind; and when you prevent all the ills that come directly or indirectly from imperfect digestion, you prevent fully three-fourths of all the ills known to human life. But the powers of happiness and harmony do not end with the digestive functions; their effect upon the nervous system is just as far-reaching and beneficial.

Make continuous happiness a part of your life, and your nerves will be as good as new as long as you live. The same is true concerning the mind. Nourish your mind with happiness as you nourish your body with food, and the ills of mind will never gain a foothold in your life for a moment. You will be mentally vigorous and strong every day, even though you should live as long upon earth as those worthy examples of ancient days.

The forces of growth, recuperation and reconstruction are all given a healthy stimulus by happiness. No matter how tired out the system may be, it will recuperate in a very short time, if you are thoroughly happy; but this the average person fails to do. When he feels tired he permits himself also to feel downcast, weary and depressed; and, therefore, instead of helping nature to restore normal conditions, he places every possible obstacle in her way.

When your horse is wearied by one load, you do not expect to give him a rest by having him hitched to a heavier load; but this is the very thing the average man does to his own personality. When the body is tired from physical burdens, he gives it a mental burden instead, and is blind enough to think that he is giving his body a rest. Mental burdens exhaust more vital energy than the hardest kind of physical work; and mental burdens are always useless; but they can be removed completely by the power of happiness.

But there is happiness and happiness; there is the genuine and the counterfeit; the former produces harmony, health and virility; the latter produces weakness, depression and hysterics. When you are bubbling over with joy, and feel like shouting, you are not happy; you are mentally intoxicated; and intoxication, whatever its nature, is an enemy to health. True happiness is calm, deeply felt, composed and contented.

It is not merely intellectual, nor is it lacking in feeling; it is not necessary for the mind to run riot in order that it may feel deeply, or express the full warmth of tenderness and emotion. Those emotions that are deeply felt and calmly serene are always the most tender; they are what may be termed the full emotions, because they express all that is tender in body, mind and soul; and they therefore give the highest and most satisfying form of joy. True happiness enjoys all things deeply, but serenely; and you can always know when you have had such happiness, because it makes your countenance radiant with a restful sweetness.

To gain real happiness, the first essential is to train yourself to think constantly of the great value of such happiness, and especially with regard to its health producing power. Such thinking will tend to produce a subconscious desire for happiness, and what the subconscious begins to desire it also begins to create. Train yourself to think of happiness as a mental necessity, just as food is a physical necessity, and you will gradually train every element and force in your system to work for the creation of happiness. By creating within yourself a constant demand for happiness, you will inspire the elements of your own nature to produce the desired supply, and before long the happiness you desire will become a permanent part of your life.

Every moment of joy that comes to you should be entered into with a deep, contented calmness. Do not permit your happy moments to bubble over on the surface, and do not permit yourself to be wrought up when occasions for great joy come into your life. Make it a point to turn your attention to the richer depths of every joy that you feel, and your enjoyments of all things will not only multiply many times, but the effect of your joy will be most beneficial both to mind and body.

Gradually your happiness will give you that calmly sweet contentment that makes the whole universe look good. And so long as you dwell in the mansions of that form of contentment, sickness can never enter your door.

Learn to look upon life as a privilege instead of a hardship. View all things, not from the valley of discontent and limitation, but from the mountain top of all that is rich and great and marvelous in the sublimated nature of man. Learn to think that everything must come out better and better if you only do your best; then proceed to do your best.

Have no fear of results so long as you do your best; and believe firmly that whatever comes to him who always does his best must of necessity be good. If it does not appear to be good, it is only temporarily disguised, and will soon reveal itself to be the greatest blessing that could have been desired. No person can be unhappy who lives in this thought; and he who lives constantly in this thought will not only become happier, and thus healthier, but he will also discover that things always turn out better and better when we do our best.

Do not think that it is necessary to carry such a weight of responsibility. The universe is held in position by the law of gravitation; do not wear yourself out trying to hold it up. Do not think that the human race will be saved through your anxiety, and do not think that your own welfare or success in life will depend upon how much you worry.

Do your best, and leave results to the laws, of life; do not worry for a minute, and do not be anxious about anything; do your best in the present and everything will be better for you in the future; this is the truth; then train yourself to deeply realize that it is the truth, and you will always be happy.

Do your part in the world as well as you possibly can, and let nature carry the responsibility; she is not only able, but most willing; in fact, that is what she is here for. You are not required to carry anything on your mind, and you are not called upon to be anxious about results in a single field of action anywhere in the universe; you are just called upon to do your best NOW; but to do your best you must be happy. It is easy, however, to be happy when you know that everything will be better so long as you do your best.

Make it a point to be happy just as you make it a point to be clean, to be presentable, to be properly dressed, to work well, to be efficient, to be worth while, to be true to all that is in you. In brief, make the attainment of continuous happiness and greater happiness a permanent part of your strongest ambition. You will soon find results. Your unhappy moments will become less and less frequent as well as less and less significant, while your happy moments will become so numerous as to almost become one continuous moment, and the richness of your joy will increase daily to a most satisfying degree.

Avoid all unwholesome mental states, such as fear, anger, worry, depression, disappointment, discouragement, gloom, sulkiness, moroseness, pessimism, sadness, harshness, resentment, remorse, anxiety, and states of a similar nature. Find fault with no one, condemn no one, antagonize no one; but first refuse to be anxious. Anxiety saps more life and energy in a day than work does in a week; we all know this; and as anxiety cannot possibly be of any use at any time, we are not justified in being anxious for a single moment.

To remove anxiety, however, we must view life, not in the old way, but in the new way. That is, we must learn to know that all things contain possibilities for greater and better things, and that we have the power to bring out those greater possibilities at any time and under any circumstances. When we begin to preach and practice the gospel of strength instead of the gospel of weakness, we shall not be anxious any more.

To be happy constantly in this deep, calmly contented manner, is to steadily increase the power of harmony in your system; and the more harmony there is in your system, the more energy, the more vitality and the more wholesome conditions there will be in your system. Finally, the power of the wholesome will become so strong and so completely established in every nerve and cell and atom that all disease, if there was any, will have to leave. And if you wish to hasten this great day of freedom, you can do so through a very simple exercise.

Whenever you feel this deep, calm contentment, turn your attention upon those organs or parts in your body that require better health. Try to impress upon those organs the same deep, serene happiness that you feel, and you thus produce in those organs a greater degree of harmony.

Repeat the exercise as frequently as you can. Try to feel happy in that organ that needs health and strength. Where you feel real happiness you produce harmony; and when you give nature perfect harmony she can restore perfect health every time, no matter what the ailment may be. A little practice will convince you that the healing power of happiness is very great indeed; and it becomes doubly so when combined with temperance. We should therefore write the rule of life in this fashion:

Be temperate in all things. Be happy at all times.