Get the Support You Need

Learn from thousands of users who have made their way through our courses. Need help getting started? Watch this short video.

today's top discussions:

logo

Addiction

Lynn123

2024-03-27 3:02 PM

Managing Drinking Community

logo

New Year's Resolutions

Ashley -> Health Educator

2024-03-25 2:47 AM

Managing Drinking Community

logo

Water

Ashley -> Health Educator

2024-03-17 5:24 PM

Healthy Weight Community

logo

What motivates you?

Ashley -> Health Educator

2024-03-10 10:30 PM

Quit Smoking Community

This Month’s Leaders:

Most Supportive

DM555 3 3

Browse through 411.742 posts in 47.053 threads.

160,431 Members

Please welcome our newest members: Jgorilla, anna13, CCaballero, JJAY EVANGEL, VKATE DARLENE

Advice from the 1820s!


13 years ago 0 538 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Thanks Ashley,
I love it! #17 is my fav. That's one I need to always work on.  And #6&7..how to tell the difference between a friend and an aqauintance...and enjoy both! This has cheered me up a lot!
Juanita
 
13 years ago 0 286 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
I LOVE IT! Thanks for posting this Ashley. I think I'm going to print this out and put it on my bulletin board - good advice, all of it.
 
Many of the points are things we've talked about on this forum, but the difference in language makes it a more amusing reminder.
13 years ago 0 6252 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Ashley,

Not much has changed in 200 years but the language. This is just as true today as then. Even the cold bath, and blazing fires. Power just went out, guess I better get my blazing fire going.

I like his last comment, "believe me". I often wondered what people did for anxiety back then and how much there was. Stands to reason there would be, life was tough then.

I like '11'.

A very amused 
Davit.
13 years ago 0 11209 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Members,

We thought this article might be fun to read and it does give some ideas on how you can cheer yourself up.

Have a read, and let us know what you think. Do you have any other ideas you can add to the list?  What items would you tale off the list?

"In 1820 English writer Sydney Smith wrote a letter to an unhappy friend, Lady Morpeth, in which he offered her tips for cheering up.  Most of Smith's suggestions are as sound now as they were almost 200 years ago – though a few are amusingly odd, and it might be tougher today to work "good blazing fires" into everyday life.
 
1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life€”not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to you friends, but talk of them freely€”they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don’t expect too much from human life€”a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana."

Source: Rubin, G. The Happiness Project. Tips for cheering yourself up--from 1820. Posted July 19 2006. Available online: http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2006/07/index.html.  Accessed: December 14 2009.
 
Ashley, Health Educator

Reading this thread: