How to Be Happy To-Day by Elizabeth Town

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 23, 1910

How to Be Happy To-Day

By Elizabeth Town

If you were going to run a Marathon race, would you prepare for it by sleeping until the last minute, then tumbling out of bed in a hurry, throwing on anything that came handy, and starting off at your highest possible speed? If you did, you would certainly fall by the wayside before you had reached the halfway mark.

To every housewife each day is a little Marathon race with time. It is of the utmost importance how we get ready for that day, how we begin the race.

Man is threefold in being; woman, likewise. To live a successful day, the home-keeper must get her threefold being ready for her work. To begin well is half the race. To begin well is to make a successful day. To begin every day well sets a habit — the habit of success. Every human being desires to live a successful life, but we are too likely to forget that the successful life is made up of a succession of successful days.

It is very easy to make one day successful; and if you can make one day successful, you can make every day successful, with very few exceptions. Remember this, and take time to start your day aright.

When you wake up, wake up! Take a few physical exercises to set your blood circulating. You need not use over one or two minutes for these exercises. Select a few easy movements, which tend to correct the stooping which comes naturally to persons who are always working with their hands, and perform them in a room with raised windows:—

1. Bend your body backward and forward as far as you can, and sidewise.

2. Rotate it, hands and head limp, and hanging as far as possible.

3. Raise your arms above your head, inhaling as you do so, then bend downward at the waist and neck, knees straight, until your fingers touch the floor. See that your head bends downward with your arms, as far as possible. Exhale slowly as your body droops forward. This is a splendid exercise, but can not be done the first time, and should be practised with discretion by stout persons, and those who are delicate.

4. Stand in the corner, toes about sixteen inches out from the corner, hands on the two walls and level with your shoulders, one foot in advance of the other. Lean forward, arms level, chest just as far in the corner as possible without touching the walls, head and abdomen as far back as possible. As you lean forward, take a good, easy, full breath. Exhale as you step back. Repeat anywhere from five to ten times with the right foot forward, then five to ten times with left foot forward. The idea is to throw the chest out and upward as far as possible, bending head and abdomen back to correct the tendency to round shoulders.

Then bathe expeditiously, dress your hair neatly, and don a neat working dress, made for the purpose. See that your dress is fastened at the neck, your apron clean and whole. No woman can live a successful or wholly happy and useful day in rag-tag clothing.

Now, if you have put your attention and will into the minute or two of physical culture exercise, and have been expeditious and sensible in your bathing and dressing, you have occupied about fifteen minutes in getting your body ready for the day. The next step is to get mind and soul ready.

In doing well for your body, you have already done much to give mind and soul the right trend. Now take eight or ten minutes more to finish the work. Sit down quietly with your Bible, and open your spirit to God. Remember that you are getting ready to live a successful day in the most successful way, and that in order to do this you must have a new realization of power and wisdom for every emergency as it arises. God is ready to help you; it is for you to place yourself in an attitude to receive his blessing.

It is God in whom “we live, and move, and have our being,” and by whom we consist, by whom we are held together. As you sit quietly with him in the silence, think of him as directing your thoughts and your hands to something which will arouse and direct your inspiration for the day. Then open your Bible, and read for five minutes, either at random or where you left off last. Read leisurely, meditate, remembering that it is God’s thought which you are breathing into your soul and mind, to cleanse, regenerate, and direct you.

After your soul and mind are tuned for the day, the next thing is to plan your work.

Don’t plan too much.

Divide your day’s work up into three sections: First, absolute necessities; second, things that are almost necessary; and third, things that could go over to another day.

Put the fewest possible things in the first division, which of course includes your every-day household routine, getting the meals, etc. If you would live a successful day, this first division must contain, above all, several rest periods, which you should get in at certain intervals, no matter what happens; for you can no more live a successful day without breathing spells for the mind and soul than without breathing spells for the body.

Be very careful that you do not include as absolute necessities any of the things which can be turned over into sections two or three. These necessities are the things which you are going to do during the day, no matter what else goes undone.

In the second division of your day put the things that “really ought to be done,” but which could go undone.

In the third division put the frills which you want to do if you have time. This will give you a sense of proportion which will enable you to be satisfied with your day, even though many items of the second and third divisions go undone.

Make up your mind that the items in division one are to be done beautifully before you touch anything in divisions two or three.

In order to do a thing beautifully, you must have, first, time to do it in, all the time there is; second, power and wisdom to do it with; third, an ideal to work by. These things all belong to you inherently, and to every moment of your time. Decide what to do, and then do each one thing as if it were the only thing of importance in the world.

Put your whole interest and heart and soul into that one thing, and get all the fun out of it that you possibly can.

Unless you can enjoy doing each piece of your work, you are not doing it beautifully

and successfully. You are robbing yourself, and you are robbing those around you, who live upon your radiance as the planets live upon the radiance of our solar center. You are not only the housewife or home-keeper, you are a sun of light. Whenever you are grumbling or hurrying at your work, you are not shining.

To get joy out of the thing you are doing is the proof that you are doing it right.

That joy which you get out of doing is the reward of doing; and if you rob yourself of it, by hurrying or fretting, you are robbing also those you love.

Now you are ready to begin your day. Remember the Marathon runner who won, and begin easy. Concentrate upon getting ready for fifteen or eighteen minutes before breakfast, then begin your day easy until ten o’clock, and you have done three quarters of the work toward making a happy and successful day. The balance of the day will almost take care of itself. If you are doing your own housework, be sure to make your first duty after breakfast that of “tidying up.” Stack your dishes neatly, brush up your kitchen, put everything in place. Then begin with your living-room, and go clear through your house, putting everything in its exact place, dusting, using your carpet-sweeper.

Until you have made this little tidying up a habit, you have no idea what an amount of friction and unpleasant feeling it will save you. It is like having a clean new dress on! All day you carry in your subconsciousness the satisfaction gained from a sense of things being in order.

For years I followed this habit, and it took me not over ten or twenty minutes to go clear through my eight-room home, and put everything in order. I scanned everything again after the noon meal, and again before I went to bed. My children were taught to put things where they belonged, but in spite of that there was always a little tidying up to do after each invasion. No time spent on my housework was more satisfyingly remunerative than these little tours of tidying up. Hundreds of times I have thanked God and myself for the order of things when something unexpected has arisen. A sense of order is inherent in all life, and unless it is satisfied, one carries about a sort of guilty subconsciousness, which saps enthusiasm and power for whatever work one may be doing. Order is heaven’s first law, and every woman is happy while making a little heaven at home.

Lastly, remember to be thankful! Take a little quiet time for thanksgiving just before you go to bed; and as you go off to sleep, remember to be grateful, and to give yourself over completely to the care of Him who slumbers not nor sleeps. Tell yourself that you will sleep soundly and well, and that you will wake bright and full of interest.

These suggestions, faithfully carried out, will go a long way toward making every day a happy day in your home.—Elizabeth Town, in Good Housekeeping.