Rejoice!

My own idea, for what it is worth, is that all sadness which is not either arising from the repentance of a concrete sin and hastening towards concrete amendment or restitution, or else arising from pity and hastening to active assistance, is simply bad; and I think we all sin by needlessly disobeying the apostolic injunction to ‘rejoice’ as much as by anything else. Humility, after the first shock, is a cheerful virtue.

– C. S. Lewis

Cheerfulness is a choice. Or rather, it is downstream from a choice. We can choose to focus on the good, to be stubbornly grateful for the gifts we have been given, and to notice beauty whenever it arises.

We cannot avoid virtuous empathy for the suffering. We cannot avoid virtuous contrition for our own failings. But we can and should avoid almost every other form of sadness: sadness for wrongs done to us, or for our own ill fortune, or for the world not going the way we want it to.

Those who rejoice, and those who don’t, will see the consequences appear in the very lines and contours of their faces.