Upwards Climb

I appreciate radio talk show host Dennis Prager's weekly advice on happiness, courtesy of his Happiness Hour every Friday.

He suggests that since happy people make the world a better place, we therefore have a moral obligation to be happy.

Naturally, life being what it is, and human nature itself being what it is, this is not an easy duty to live up to. But if there's one change that's overtaken me as I've gotten older, it's coming around to share Dennis' belief about the moral obligation to not succumb to despair. If I could travel back in time to counsel my younger, perennially depressed self, I would do all I could to encourage this habit, of working to cheer oneself up.

If we're not genuinely happy, then at least we should act happy... because, often enough, that sincere effort is sufficient to be of service to us. It shifts us forward, ever so slightly. It helps us climb upwards, from out of the gloom, one step at a time.

Is there really any other way to overcome the inevitable grief, and suffering, that goes hand in hand with life's rare delights?

Our memory holds the key to happiness: to remember better times, to use those memories as the spark that lights a candle in darkness, and lifts us out of despair, through the imagined possibility of rejoicing, of learning to feel a renewed joy once again.