Zoe and Irene returned from India last week with stories of a 91 year old childless widow, called Jenny, whom my mother occasionally visits. Jenny lived alone, in a tiny house, a landlord had carved off from his own house. One room was a corridor. Her tiny bedroom leaked and was not fixed, so she was sleeping in the tiny living room. She owned little, but was happy as a lark. I wake up in the morning, and praise Jesus. I read my Bible all the time. She was happy, upbeat and positive, singing songs to them in her quavery voice. With very little money, a tiny leaky house, and no family. My goodness! I realised this years ago when I visited the Bible teacher Dick Woodward who was paralysed from the neck down and in pain, but ebullient, wise and cheerful. What is inside is everything. Our attitude is everything. Our spiritual life is everything. All the wealth and success in the world cannot give us happiness. The spiritual life, on the other hand, is like a pair of magic eyes which sheds rainbows and goldenness on everything. I have a slight advantage in the happiness stakes, because I am naturally cheerful and ebullient. Happy, if you like. Recent psychological research suggests a set-point for happiness--life events move us a few points up or down on it, but its basically set. However, being cheerful and positive is also learned behaviour, a facet of character, and of paramount importance to develop as one ages. Andrew Solomon in his writing on depression says that as we age the sheath of myelin around our nerves degenerates. Therefore, anyone who lives long enough will eventually become clinically depressed (he speculates). Whats our best defence against becoming a crabby, ungrateful, tiresome, negative old person? Practising. Practising cheerfulness. Practising gratitude. I think it was psychologist Martin Seligman in his positivity research who says that 3 months after writing down 5 things a day that we are grateful for we land up assessing ourselves as 25% percent happier. Wow. Lord, you have given me so much. Give me one thing more: a grateful heart. That is one of my frequent prayers. Thank you for reading. (Perhaps I will develop this into a blog :-)
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 15:10:18 +0000
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