The less important something is, the more time is spent on it.
When a topic is simple and easy to grasp, like a bike shed, we will tend to have an opinion on it and thus more to say.
Even if we don't, we'll still say something so that:
<ul>
<li>We don't look stupid in front of our peers.</li>
<li>It looks like we're contributing.</li>
</ul>
Prevent bike-shedding with a clear purpose and objective. Ensure that your meetings have a clearly defined purpose or desired outcome.

Bike-Shedding or Parkinson’s Law of Triviality

<ul><li>Fewer cooks in the kitchen generally leads to a better meal.</li><li>Be ruthless about limiting the size of the meeting.</li><li>If a big meeting is unavoidable, do your best to share both the purpose and relevant information ahead of time to increase the chances that participants will have something of value to say</li></ul>

Less Is More

<ul><li>Identify trivial matters ahead of time and delegate them to individuals or smaller groups that are empowered to make decisions without the full group’s approval</li><li>This ensures that everyone is on the same page about what should and shouldn’t be discussed.</li></ul>

Delegate Trivial Matters

<ul><li>Don't engage more than you have to.</li><li>Save your voice for moments when you can contribute meaningfully.</li><li>Speak softly and carry a big stick.</li><li>Protect your energy and mental health by resisting the temptation to participate just because everyone else is.</li></ul>

Be Aware and Pick Your Battles

We focus on trivia at the expense of more important issues. Why does this happen and what we can do about it?

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Why We Spend So Much Time at Work on Things that Don't Matter

Out of the too-much-ness is birthed this unending sense of anxiety, this feeling of stress that people can’t ever seem to shake. We could blame social media, relational obligations, toxic workplaces, genetics, trauma, or the state of the world for these feelings of anxiety. However, pointing a finger at the cause of the noise isn’t enough. If we are bogged down by perpetual feelings of being, doing, or experiencing too much, then doesn’t it make sense to simply do less? But this simple concept is not so simple in practice.

Constant State Of Anxiety

Doing less is a practice and a mindset. It means that we actively choose to balance our schedules to give space to both our obligations and our rest. It means that we also tune into the mental chaos that surrounds our times of rest and work toward releasing the dialogue that perpetuates a sense of busyness.Doing Less means prioritizing our schedules and making space for rest, play, and rejuvenation.

Do Less, Not More

However, doing less can also exist in the moments when we aren’t doing anything.If we make the conscious effort to eliminate things from our schedule and create a day where the intention is to rest, we also have to pay attention to our mindset during those times of rest. If we are doing “nothing” and internalize judgments about doing nothing, then the nothingness is no longer restful.Doing less helps because it is the antidote for what we already do but doesn’t seem to work.

Doing Nothing While Doing Nothing

If we are doing something enjoyable but our mind is fixed on the following day’s stressful meeting or presentation, then that enjoyable thing is no longer enjoyable. We must be mindful of the present and actively edit our internal dialogue so that it promotes the benefits of restfulness.Research shows that mindfulness, rest, sleep, and engaging in hobbies improve our mood and, in turn, our quality of life. It is easy to be caught up in the chaos of life.

Being Mindful

Success doesn’t only mean the number of followers gained or the number of dollars earned. Success as a writer — or whatever profession you are pursuing — also must include the quality of your work and the inspiration gained from the topic.Doing less helps because it starts to give our minds and bodies permission to exist, to relax, to take a breath. Making space in our lives to unplug and rejuvenate. Doing less gives room in your life to do things that inspire you and make you feel at peace.

The Calculation Of Success

The average person spends between 7–9 hours on screens every day. Also, the average person only completes about 40% of the tasks on their to-do list. We are operating in this space of nothing and everything. We consume all this content and yet complete little on our list.We are filling our days in ways that leave us feeling perpetually behind. We always have things that must be done, and we never have the time to do those things. Doing less forces us to pause and gain perspective. It attends to the emotional centres of our lived experience neglected by to-do lists and screen time.

Watching Screens All Day

Think about how this foolish-sounding idea might help reduce your stress levels and force you into a state of mindfulness. Notice how the simplest of shifts could — if you open your mind to it — have the most significant impact on your overall wellbeing.<ul><li>Schedule your hobbies</li><li>Go to bed a half hour earlier</li><li>Turn off your music in your car and just drive</li><li>Take your lunch break by yourself</li><li>Go outside</li><li>Set a reminder to breathe</li></ul>

Implementing "Doing Less"

The inconvenient solution to stress and anxiety.

mentalhealth

Mental Health

Building Contentment in a Busy World

The mobile home screen is the biggest time sink of today. I realized keeping my home screen minimal dramatically reduced my tendency to check apps with no prime purpose.p.s- I'm using a productivity launcher since the start of this year and it's amazing!

#1. De-clutter Your Mobile Home Screen

Remember that we are trying to fight the best behavioral scientists in the world whose job is to keep us hooked to our apps.Poor chance we will win.Install time blockers!

#2. Put Time Limits On All Apps Where You Tend To Waste Time

You will not be able to fight distraction if your mobile screen is constantly pinging with what's happening, or your screen shows you how many messages you've missed!Remove all of them. It should look like this, all the time.

#3. Remove All Notifications And Red Color Badges

One of the worst things we do to ourselves is to wake up just in time for our day.We feel rushed.It disorients us. For the entire day. The first thing I do is sip water for 15 mins.No phone. No book. No music. No person.Just me, water, and my thoughts.

#4. Wake up Slow

If our glucose levels go down, we feel drained out of energy.If they remain too high, we tend to overeat.

#5. Maintain Your Glucose Levels Sideways

We all have a zone where we are most productive.Guard that period ferociously. Schedule the toughest or most impactful things for that period. For me, it is my mornings. Reserved for the most important things with most of it thinking time

#6. Find your max energy period

A powerful way to keep your mind focused.A 30-min slot is 1 pomodoro25 mins of work5 mins of breakRepeatAfter 4 pomodoros, take a long 20-30 min break. Download a Pomodoro timer - there are plenty of good ones.

#7. Use Pomodoro Technique

Your mind should be used to think.Not to remember.Use the calendar, emails, and notes app to record everything.From to-do lists to reminders and beyond.

#8. Do Not Try To Remember Anything

We are living in a world of information abundance. And the more sources you have of information, the more you will constantly be consuming, as against doing real work.

#9. Restrict Information To Max 3 Sources

Even with 3 sources, you could spend your entire day consumed by them.Schedule time for them.

#10. Schedule time for these sources

We crave distraction because it is the forbidden fruit.Dopamine is addictive. You could fight it by setting up a scheduled time to "waste time"Our mind then anticipates it, instead of craving it.

#11. Setup distraction time

When we write we tell our brain that this is important.Which is one of the best ways to get our mind off that thing. So the next time you feel distracted, just write down that thought.

#12. Keep a  journal for distracting thoughts

Our mind is designed to focus on things that we haven't finished, as against things that we have. Do not add to your pile of unfinished things.

#13. If anything can be done in 2 mins and needs to be done, do it.

Nothing beats distraction than having a routine. The absence of which is you willingly giving away control of your day to external stimuli.

#14. Maintain a routine

This thread will help you in cutting the distraction off and doing more with our time!

habits

Habits

14 Ways To Beat Distraction🚫

"The Art Spirit", by Robert Henri is about creativity through the lens of an art student.  The book starts, "Art, when really understood, is a province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things - anything. Well, it is not an outside extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He opens ways for better understanding." Startups are interesting to others. They don't have to be painters to be artists. They can work in any medium.

Startups are like artists

It's not just how important the end product is but the actual craft of doing the work, inventing within the work. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways.

Learn how important the work is

The old masters did know how they compose their pictures. Do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them.  It's easy to fall in the footsteps of others, to do what they do because you think it's the right way. You may think if they've had success, you can copy that success. Yet, you have to find your own path to be successful.

Do what has not been done before

An art student must be a master from the start. He must be a master of his own tools. That mastership is not a destination. It is a process and constant practice. It is not enough to think of great things. What really matters is the work. To implement those ideas. Other's success seems like it happened in just a moment, but it takes years and years of patience.

Be a master of your own tools

If you don't have purpose that is shared between everyone, you will not do anything that is timeless. You must focus on building what you want to see in the world. When you have a passion for building for yourself, that' will draw other people to your cause and your team.

You cannot do anything without a shared sense of purpose 

Bill Walsh took a football team near the bottom and brought them to the top. He focused entirely on a new standard of performance. The most challenging transition for an entrepreneur is going from individual action to leading a team. First, start with an idea and a philosophy of purpose, then find people to help you implement it.

The Score Takes Care of Itself, by Bill Walsh

<ol><li>Start with a comprehensive recognition of reverence for identifying the specific actions and attitudes relevant to your team's performance.</li><li>Be clear on your expectations of effort and execution of your standard.</li><li>Let all know that you expect them to possess the highest level of expertise in their area.</li><li>Teach your beliefs, values and your philosophy.</li><li>Teach connection and extension. You don't want independent contractors, you want people who feel connected that can expand the organization.</li><li>Make the expectations and metrics of competence.</li></ol>

Establish a standard of performance

<ol><li>Be yourself</li><li>Be committed to excellence</li><li>Be positive</li><li>Be prepared to recognize fortunate situations and act on them immediately. Good luck is a product of good planning.</li><li>Act professional. Push in your chairs, tuck in your shirts. If you build an organization that does that, you build an organization that cares about itself.</li><li>Be organized.</li><li>Be accountable</li><li>Be near-sighted and far-sighted.</li><li>Be firm</li><li>Be flexible</li><li>Believe in yourself</li><li>Be a leader. Ensure to show and not tell.</li></ol>

Habits of a leader

<ol><li>Exbihit paralyzing patience.</li><li>Engage in massive delegating. </li><li>Act in a tedious, overly cautious manner.</li><li>Become best buddies with certain employees or play favouritism.</li><li>Spend excessive time socializing with superiors or subordinates</li><li>Fail to continue performance evaluations of long-time or tenured staff members.</li><li>Fail to actively participate in efforts to praise and acquire new hires.</li><li>Trust others to carry out your fundamental duties.</li><li>Find ways to get out from under the responsibilities of your position.</li><li>Promote a laid-back organisational environment.</li></ol>

What not to do

<ol><li>Praise is more valuable than blame.</li><li>Set expectations. Use every means before and after comment to tell troops what they're going to do and what they have done.</li><li>Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, meticulous attention to detail, and mutual respect and confidence.</li><li>Officers must assert themselves by example.</li><li>General officers must be seen in the front line during action.</li><li>There's a tendency for the chain of command to overload junior officers with excessive requirements in the way of training.</li></ol>

How General Patton ran his army during World War One

<ol><li>Formally celebrate and observe the momentous achievement and ensure everyone feels ownership of it.</li><li>Allow pats on the back for a limited time.</li><li>Be apprehensive about applause.</li><li>Develop a plan for your staff that gets them back into the mode of operation that produced success.</li><li>Address specific situations that need shoring up. </li><li>Be demanding. Do not relax.</li><li>Don't fall prey to overconfidence. Make change for the sake of change.</li><li>Make hard decisions immediately after success.</li><li>Never fall prey to the belief that getting to the top makes everything easy. It doesn't.</li><li>Mastery is a process, not a destination.</li></ol>

How to protect against the success disease

Keep a list of everything that you want to do every day and a list of things that you don't want to do. This will help to establish patterns for yourself. Every day for a week, wake up to this note. Check it throughout the day and before you fall asleep.For example:Do's<ul><li>Stay present.</li><li>Be vulnerable. Show people your mistakes and fears.</li><li>Drink only lemon water and red wine.</li><li>Exercise.</li></ul> Don't's<ul><li>Don't avoid eye contact.</li><li>Don't be late.</li><li>Don't set expectations for someone and not meet them.</li><li>Don't eat sugar.</li><li>Dont drink hard liquor or beer on weekdays.</li></ul>

Keep daily notes

How to Start a Business: A Startup Guide for Entrepreneurs

startup

Startups

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

business

Business

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

The Startup Masterclass

Jack Dorsey at Startup School 2013. Startup School is YC's free online program for founders. Sign up to access the full curriculum and over $100k in deals! https://www.startupschool.org/

videos

Videos

Videos to help you build a successful startup. Subscribe for startup advice, founder stories, and a look inside Y Combinator.

What is Y Combinator?
We invest $500,000 in every startup and work intensively with the founders for three months. For the life of their company, founders have access to the most powerful community in the world, essential advice, later-stage funding and programs, recruiting resources, and exclusive deals. 

Visit https://ycombinator.com/why to learn more.



Y Combinator

Jack Dorsey at Startup School 2013

Jack Dorsey at Startup School

A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth.  Startups are so hard that you can't be pointed off to the side and hope to succeed. You have to know that growth is what you're after. The good news is, that if you get growth, everything else tends to fall into place. This means you can use growth like a compass to make almost every decision you face.

Startup: A Primer

To grow rapidly, you need to make something you can sell to a big market. That's the difference between Google and a barbershop. A barbershop doesn't scale.For a company to grow really big, it must (a) make something lots of people want, and (b) reach and serve all those people. Barbershops are doing fine in the (a) department. Almost everyone needs their hair cut. The problem for a barbershop, as for any retail establishment, is (b). A barbershop serves customers in person, and few will travel far for a haircut. And even if they did, the barbershop couldn't accommodate them.

Scalability

It might seem that it would always be better to start a startup than an ordinary business. If you're going to start a company, why not start the type with the most potential? The catch is that this is a (fairly) efficient market. If you write software to teach Tibetan to Hungarians, you won't have much competition. If you write software to teach English to Chinese speakers, you'll face ferocious competition, precisely because that's such a larger prize.

Ideas

Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to search the web. But unlike most people they had the technical expertise both to notice that existing search engines were not as good as they could be, and to know how to improve them. Over the next few years, their problem became everyone's problem, as the web grew to a size where you didn't have to be a picky search expert to notice the old algorithms weren't good enough. But as happened with Apple, by the time everyone else realized how important search was, Google was entrenched.

Solving Our Own Problem

That's one connection between startup ideas and technology. Rapid change in one area uncovers big, soluble problems in other areas. Sometimes the changes are advances, and what they change is solubility. That was the kind of change that yielded Apple; advances in chip technology finally let Steve Wozniak design a computer he could afford. But in Google's case, the most important change was the growth of the web. What changed there was not solubility but bigness.

The Importance Of Technology Advancement

The real question is not what growth rate makes a company a startup, but what growth rate successful startups tend to have.The growth story has three phases:<ul><li>There's an initial period of slow or no growth while the startup tries to figure out what it's doing.</li><li>As the startup figures out how to make something lots of people want and how to reach those people, there's a period of rapid growth.</li><li>Eventually, a successful startup will grow into a big company. Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves.</li></ul>

Being On The Right Path

The phase whose growth defines the startup is the second one, the ascent. Its length and slope determine how big the company will be.The slope is the company's growth rate. If there's one number every founder should always know, it's the company's growth rate. That's the measure of a startup. If you don't know that number, you don't even know if you're doing well or badly.

The S Curve

The best thing to measure the growth rate is revenue. The next best, for startups that aren't charging initially, is active users. That's a reasonable proxy for revenue growth because whenever the startup does start trying to make money, its revenues will probably be a constant multiple of active users

How To Measure Growth: The Best Indicators

We usually advise startups to pick a growth rate they think they can hit, and then just try to hit it every week. The key word here is "just." If they decide to grow at 7% a week and they hit that number, they're successful for that week. There's nothing more they need to do. But if they don't hit it, they've failed in the only thing that mattered and should be correspondingly alarmed.Programmers will recognize what we're doing here. We're turning starting a startup into an optimization problem.

Using Coding Skills To Hack A Startup Growth

Focusing on hitting a growth rate reduces the otherwise bewilderingly multifarious problem of starting a startup to a single problem. You can use that target growth rate to make all your decisions for you; anything that gets you the growth you need is ipso facto right? Should you spend two days at a conference? Should you hire another programmer? Should you focus more on marketing? Should you spend time courting some big customer? Should you add x feature? Whatever gets you your target growth rate.

Don't Focus On Ten Things, Just One

The fascinating thing about optimizing for growth is that it can actually discover startup ideas. You can use the need for growth as a form of evolutionary pressure. If you start out with some initial plan and modify it as necessary to keep hitting, say, 10% weekly growth, you may end up with a quite different company than you meant to start. But anything that grows consistently at 10% a week is almost certainly a better idea than you started with.The constraint of growing at a certain rate can help define a startup.

Growth Works On Your Startup Pivoting

A company that grows at 1% a week will grow 1.7x a year, whereas a company that grows at 5% a week will grow 12.6x. A company making $1000 a month (a typical number early in YC) and growing at 1% a week will 4 years later be making $7900 a month, which is less than a good programmer makes in salary in Silicon Valley. A startup that grows at 5% a week will in 4 years be making $25 million a month.Our intuitions are no guide here. What happens to fast-growing startups tends to surprise even the founders.

Compounding Growth

Considering how valuable a successful startup can become, anyone familiar with the concept of expected value would be surprised if the failure rate weren't high.

The test of any investment is the ratio of return to risk. Startups pass that test because although they're appallingly risky, the returns when they do succeed are so high. But that's not the only reason investors like startups. An ordinary slower-growing business might have just as good a ratio of return to risk if both were lower. So why are VCs interested only in high-growth companies? The reason is that they get paid by getting their capital back, ideally after the startup IPOs, or failing that when it's acquired.

Why VCs Love Unicorns

The reason VCs like to invest in startups is not simply the returns, but also because such investments are so easy to oversee. The founders can't enrich themselves without also enriching the investors. Why do founders want to take the VCs' money? Growth, again. The constraint between good ideas and growth operates in both directions. It's not merely that you need a scalable idea to grow. If you have such an idea and don't grow fast enough, competitors will. Growing too slowly is particularly dangerous in a business with network effects, which the best startups usually have to some degree.

Enriching The VCs

Almost every company needs some amount of funding to get started. But startups often raise money even when they are or could be profitable. It might seem foolish to sell stock in a profitable company for less than you think it will later be worth, but it's no more foolish than buying insurance. Fundamentally that's how the most successful startups view fundraising. They could grow the company on their own revenues, but the extra money and help supplied by VCs will let them grow even faster. Raising money lets you choose your growth rate.

Growth Is The Reason Startups Get Repeat Funding

If you want to understand startups, understand growth. Growth drives everything in this world. Growth is why startups usually work on technology — because ideas for fast-growing companies are so rare that the best way to find new ones is to discover those recently made viable by change, and technology is the best source of rapid change.Growth makes successful companies so valuable that the expected value is high even though the risk is too. Growth is why VCs want to invest in startups.

Understand Growth

Starting a startup is thus very much like deciding to be a research scientist: you're not committing to solve any specific problem; you don't know for sure which problems are soluble, but you're committing to try to discover something no one knew before. A startup founder is in effect an economic research scientist. Most don't discover anything that remarkable, but some discover relativity.

The Bottom Line

An important read for anyone thinking of starting up a company.

Startup = Growth

<ul><li class="ql-align-center">You dedicate most of your time to building one thing. Others split their time between many things.</li><li class="ql-align-center">You understand that feeling bored is a sign that you need to work through and make peace with the resistance.</li><li class="ql-align-center">You do, while others plan</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-center">You have a clear goal/s AND a system.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Your primary mode of action is to advance with urgency.</li><li class="ql-align-center">You understand yourself and speak your truth.</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-center">You understand the significance of money, and you will seek new means to increase income. </li><li class="ql-align-center">You understand how the concept of compound interest applies to your work output .</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-center">The Internet has very little control over you. Others are seduced by its power.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Your source of learning is mostly through experience — creating, testing and adapting.</li><li class="ql-align-center">You take notice of your 5, but you do not react — instead taking considered action .</li></ul>

<ul><li class="ql-align-center">To gain ground, you will do what others would consider unreasonable. </li><li class="ql-align-center">You are humble and take action even when you feel embarrassed or vulnerable.</li></ul>

Let’s not mess about and get straight into it…. “15 reasons you will succeed (in the next 5 years) when others will not” is published by Alex Mathers.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

15 reasons you will succeed (in the next 5 years) when others will not

Nearly all great ideas follow a similar creative process. Understanding this is important because creative thinking is one of the most useful skills you can possess. Nearly every problem you face in work and in life can benefit from innovative solutions, lateral thinking, and creative ideas. Anyone can learn to be creative by using these five steps.

For a More Creative Brain Follow These 5 Steps

Uncovering your creative genius requires courage and tons of practice.Creative thinking is not about generating something new from a blank slate, but rather about taking what is already present and combining those bits and pieces in a way that has not been done previously.Most important, the ability to generate new combinations hinges upon your ability to see the relationships between concepts. If you can form a new link between two old ideas, you have done something creative.

The 5 Stages of the Creative Process

At first, you learn. During this stage you focus on<ul><li>learning specific material directly related to your task and</li><li>learning general material by becoming fascinated with a wide range of concepts.</li></ul>

1. Gathering Material

Thoroughly work over the materials in your mind. During this stage, you examine what you have learned by looking at the facts from different angles and experimenting with fitting various ideas together.

2. Intensely Working Over the Material in Your Mind

Step away from the problem. Next, you put the problem completely out of your mind and go do something else that excites you and energizes you.

3. Stepping Away from the Problem

Let your idea return to you. At some point, but only after you have stopped thinking about it, your idea will come back to you with a flash of insight and renewed energy.

4. Allowing the Idea to Come Back to You Naturally

Shape and develop your idea based on feedback. For any idea to succeed, you must release it out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.

5. Testing Your Idea in the Real World and Adjusting It Based on Feedback

Being creative isn't about being the first (or only) person to think of an idea. More often, creativity is about connecting ideas.

Remember

“Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless.”-Elizabeth Gilbert

Creativity Quote

This article explains the creative process all brilliant ideas have in common. Anyone can learn to be creative by using these five steps.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

creativity

Creativity

For a More Creative Brain, Follow These 5 Steps

“Power dwells with cheerfulness,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. Though we often think of cheerfulness as the opposite of power, as an insincere urge to liven things up, Emerson knew it to be a resource of the self, a tool for shaping our emotional lives that can help to relocate us in the social world and link us to community. At the present time, as we confront wave after wave of bad news sweeping the planet, cheerfulness is worth our consideration.

Power Dwells With Cheerfulness

With cheerfulness, we see a rise in emotional energy, a sudden uptick in mood. It is fleeting or ephemeral, in that it comes and goes. But we can control it. We can “cheer up”, just as we can “calm down”. As the English philosopher Robert Burton put it in The Anatomy Of Melancholy (1621): “expect a little … Cheer up.” Burton’s advice to “expect a little” reminds us that cheerfulness is a modest power. But, as Emerson knew, it is a power all the same.

Cheerfulness Is A Modest Power, But A Power All The Same. 

Perhaps it is because of the modesty of cheerfulness that philosophers have largely overlooked it. They tend to focus on more dramatic emotions such as anger and melancholy, viewing human emotional life as a battleground of unconscious drives or overwhelming passions. The classic example of the man ruled by passion is the Greek hero Achilles. Overcome by his wrath toward Agamemnon, Achilles refused to join his fellow Greeks in the war against Troy, thereby betraying his own duty as Greece’s greatest warrior. Unlike wrath, cheerfulness is largely elective. We can manage it.

Cheerfulness Is Largely Elective: We Choose It; We Can Manage It

It is no accident that the English philosopher Robert Burton mentions cheerfulness in a book about melancholy. In much writing about emotion, cheerfulness is presented as the antidote to the dark emotions of the melancholic. Medical thinkers up into the 19th century assumed that the human body was governed by the circulation of fluids, or humours. Melancholy, for example, arose from an excess of black bile, while certain stimulants were understood to counter melancholy and generate cheerfulness. Other doctors argued that it was possible to stimulate cheer chemically.

The Relationship Of Cheerfulness And Melancholy

Medical thought and practice aside, it is clear that cheerfulness is deeply linked to the body, and, in particular, the face. Indeed, it begins in the face and moves inward. As the French writer Germaine de Staël pointed out at the beginning of the 19th century, when you take on a cheerful expression, no matter what the state of your soul, your cheerfulness moves into the self: “the facial expression penetrates, bit by bit, what one experiences.” The interior of the self is changed by the power of cheer.

The Relationship Of Cheerfulness And The Body

This trajectory of cheerfulness through the self is linked to the history of the word “cheer” itself. “Cheer” comes from an Old French word that means, simply, “face”. The term comes into English and spreads through medieval culture in the 14th century. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), for example, people are depicted as having a “piteous cheer” or a “sober cheer”. “Cheer” is an expression, but also a body part. It lies at the intersection of our emotions and physiognomy.

The Relationship Of “Cheer” And Face

In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation sparked intense debate over the meaning of spiritual community. At the same moment, when the Bible begins to be widely translated into vernacular languages, the simple noun “cheer” expands to encompass the adjective “cheerful”and, eventually, around 1530, includes the more abstract idea of “cheerful-ness”. which turns the local expression of the face into an abstract noun, something that can circulate as an emotional quality of the self.

From Face To Expression, To Mood, To Emotional Quality

In the Geneva Bible (1560), from Saint Paul’s “Second Letter to the Corinthians” we learn that to participate in the Christian community you must practise caritas , or love. “As every man wisheth in his heart,” says Paul, “so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.” God loveth a cheerful giver. These words resonated widely across the early modern world, linking cheer – and the face – to the practice of caritas, a social and religious activity.

God Loves The Cheerful Giver (ἱλαρὸν γὰρ δότην ἀγαπᾷ ὁ Θεός)

Commentators on the Bible struggled to grasp the meaning of Saint Paul’s famous phrase. Erasmus of Rotterdam, the greatest intellectual of the day, linked the cheerful body to community, saying: ‘let thy thankful gift be increased and doubled with a merry look and cheerfulness.’ Giving is good. But giving cheerfully is even better, and your intentions may be seen through your ‘merry look’. Conversely, if you are not cheerful (with no merry look), you may not be a true Christian.

Do You Have A Cheerful Self If You Have A Cheerless Face?

The suspicion that to be cheerless maybe meant to be unchristian was held by John Calvin, the great Protestant reformer. He suggested that stingy or reluctant participation in the charitable Christian community is the mark of Catholics, whom he saw as decadent and fearful of papal authority, whereas good Christians give cheerfully, with a glad visage. A bit later, the poet and preacher John Donne extended this idea, noting in a sermon that God gives his holy word to us, “not in a sour, and sullen, and angry, and unacceptable way, but cheerfully”.

Cheerfulness, True Faith And True Face

Modern readers might be struck in these early accounts by the extent to which cheerfulness is much more than the superficial performance of the upbeat colleague or the annoying salesman. A social quality, it shapes and defines a particular moral community. It emerges between people, binding them together. No wonder doctors sought to generate cheerfulness through chemical means.

Cheerfulness (Re)Locates Us Socially And (Re)Links Us Communally

A cheery mood, we might think, is a terribly self-absorbed response to serious times. But history tells us otherwise.

A cheery mood, you might think, is a terribly self-absorbed response to serious times. But history tells us otherwise

On The Surprising History Of Cheerfulness And Its Subtle Power

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