19 Tips For Cheering Yourself Up -- From 200 Years Ago

While reading a biography of English writer Sydney Smith, Hesketh Pearson's The Smith of Smiths, I stumbled across a letter. In 1820, Smith wrote a letter to an unhappy friend, Lady Morpeth, in which he offered her tips for cheering up.

I have my own variety of tips lists for cheering up, and I was interested to hear what someone from two centuries ago would recommend. Most of Smith's suggestions are as sound now as they were almost 200 years ago - though a few are amusingly odd, and it might be tougher today to work "good blazing fires" into everyday life. But, without further ado, here they are:

1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life--not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to you friends, but talk of them freely--they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don't expect too much from human life--a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don't be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana."

*** Check out Gretchen's new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.

Comments

[joebiz]

Good post. It seems that the 'ancients' were wise beyond their years. One book come to mind that is similar in orientation with respect to the above post is Balthazar Gracian's "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." You can probably find if for free online. .

[KillgoreTrout43]

Ancients? 200 years ago is hardly, "ancient."

[OtayPanky]

"10th. Compare your lot with that of other people."

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Excellent advice - especially for teenage girls.

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"12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolenc­e."

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No DARK NIGHT for you. And no HAMLET.

HAMLET 2 looks like it might be OK, though.

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"13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree. "

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Indeed. Being a people pleaser is the royal road to true and lasting happiness!

Gretchen Rubin, you are a treasure.

[KillgoreTrout43]

Sometimes there is joy in melancholy. It can be a great way to feel better about your sadness. Comedy performances are a great way to keep the blues away. So is blues music. That's actually how blues music came about, it picked up people's spirits to sing about thier troubles and woes.(and listen to others sing and play)
Sadness is essential to a healthy outlook on life. Without sadness, how would we know what joy and happiness is? Without ugliness, how would we know what beauty is? It's the duality of life that makes it worth living.

[OtayPanky]

KillgoreTrout43: Sadness is essential to a healthy outlook on life.

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No. It's not. Really.

It's just that you've never known unadulterated joy, so you can't imagine it as a state of consciousness. You can get an idea of it, though, if you ever read the words of The Buddha.

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KillgoreTrout43: Without sadness, how would we know what joy and happiness is? Without ugliness, how would we know what beauty is?

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That's like saying, if I'm not blind, how would I know what sight is. It's a truism, but it's not true, in any sense. It just seems true to you at this moment.

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KillgoreTrout43: It's the duality of life that makes it worth living.

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Well, then let's all hope that Osama gets to lay down a nuke in NY or LA. That will really sharpen up everyone's palate and make life seem even more worthwhile than it seems right now.

[KillgoreTrout43]

I take exception with number 12. I am a poet.

[hartkid]

write a letter to a friend, go to a dairy and learn how milk is processed and packaged, make an attractive window-display on home safety.