Smile – Pause to reflect

When you experienced sadness yesterday, your situation didn’t get any better by you being sad. Your son failed in school, and you became depressed, yet did your depression change the fact that he failed? Your father passed away, and you became downhearted, yet did that bring him back to life? You lost your business, and you became saddened. Did this change your situation by transforming losses into profits?
Do not be sad: you became despondent due to calamity, and by doing so, created additional calamities. You became depressed because of poverty and this only increased the bitterness of your situation. You became gloomy because of what your enemies said to you: by entering into that mental state, you unwittingly helped them in their attack against you. You became sullen because you expected a particular misfortune, and yet it never came to pass.
Do not be sad: Sadness causes you to imagine poison when you are really looking at pure water, to see a cactus when you are looking at a rose, to see a barren desert when you are looking at a rose, to see a barren desert when you are looking at a lush garden, and to feel that you are in an unbearable prison when you are living on a vast and spacious earth.
Do not be sad: you have two eyes, two ears, lips, two hands, two legs, a tongue, a heart, peace, safety and a healthy body. Do not be sad: you have a bread to eat, water to drink, clothes to wear, a wife to find comfort with: why then the melancholy?