Yesterday, I spoke of the barren rose garden at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.  Today, I have another photo taken at this gorgeous place.  I did not want to give you the impression that there was nothing growing in the garden, so I decided to prove it to you.  Here is a plant that is not only growing but thriving; not only green but blooming in the Alabama winter.  Many plants caught my eye this day that seemed as happy and content as could be with the cold weather.

                If I were a flower, I bet it would be easy to be happy and content when the weather is warm.  How hard could it be to bloom when the warm sun is shining and the gentle rain falls?  When the skies are blue and the birds and bees kiss you each morning, I bet it is easy to grow and even to thrive.  To live in a place like this in the spring time would be paradise and to constantly wear a smile would come as natural as laughing when you’re happy.  It is easy to grow when everything is going right in your life.  To be cheerful is effortless when nothing hinders and you are constantly surrounded by everything you want.

                But, what about when the weather is cold and the skies are gray and you never see the birds or the bees?  How easy is it to smile and thrive in the cold of winter when you never see the sun shine?  Can you be cheerful and pleasant when you live many miles from easy street?  What about when most things hinder and nothing seem to be what you wanted?  Today have your been frowning more than you have smiled?  What about your attitude, is it positive or negative?  Do you laugh much?  Do you spread good cheer, or is it something else you are spreading?

                Happiness is a choice.  Cheerfulness is a state of mind.  Cheerfulness is the habit of looking at the good side of things and focusing on the positive, the good, the beautiful and realizing how fortunate and blessed we truly are.  Cheerfulness is the atmosphere in which all things thrive.  Give it a try, what have you got to lose; smile.

Something to think about:

• Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of good looks.

• Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

• Cheerfulness removes the rust from the mind, lubricates our inward machinery, and enables us to do our work with fewer creaks and groans.

• Burdens become light when cheerfully borne.

• Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness and its power of endurance—the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it better; will persevere in it longer; than the sad or sullen.

• The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

• Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them and while their hearts can be thrilled by them.

Looking for a smiling face
Rickey Moore