By: Jada Law, Follow South Jersey Intern
SOUTH JERSEY — In the last weeks of October, college student Keiah Welch had just finished up her final exams and was entering the start of fall break. She decided to leave the confines of her college dorm for this break, and booked a plane to visit her long distance lover.
“The vulnerability we share, the intimacy we experience together, and our overall connection triggers a feeling of cheerfulness where I experience pure bliss and love,” stated Welch.
Being cheerful is a mindset that follows Welch and her boyfriend in their interactions with one another.
“Endorphins and Oxytocin are definitely released every time I feel cheerfulness with my boyfriend,” Welch said.
The word cheerfulness has a number of ways to define it. However, many view it as a frame of mind or an emotion one must actively hold on to in a given situation.
Lewis University student Aaliyah Jenkins described cheerfulness as “having a positive outlook on everyday moments and situations in your life.”
“It’s like the concept of fulfillment,” said Joliet Junior college student Peter Hassan. “Basically something in your life that is a void and you can substitute that with joy and happiness.”
“Cheerfulness can be defined as a state of being full of bliss,” stated Barnard University student, Keiah Welch. “It’s the state of being that you are shifted to when triggered by a positive external stimulus, or it’s something that you can discover within and envelope yourself in.”
According to an article by Complete Wellbeing, “Cheerfulness is the greatest lubricant of the wheels of life. It diminishes pain, fights disease, mitigates misfortunes, lightens burdens and eases one’s life.”
Cheerfulness can bring a sense of positivity in one’s life and make a person see their experiences in a new light.
“When I went to Mexico that brought me cheer,” stated Certified Nursing Assistant Valencia Brown, “just being able to go somewhere I never been and learn about their culture was [something new and different].”
Bolingbrook High School student, Charlotte Smith said “anytime I’m with friends I feel cheer, whether we’re all on our phones, eating food together, or doing an activity, I feel happiness even if it’s just a little while.
“A moment that brought me cheer was just this weekend at Chicago’s Cocoa Run,” said Jenkins, “I met some new people and had a lot of fun doing the 5K.”
Cheer is not just an emotion it can also be spread, just like a virus, someone being cheerful can cause others to feel the same.
“There was a man at my school [in a wheelchair] and I helped him get to his car and opened the door for them and I did that out of the kindness of my heart,” stated Hassan.
Brown said, “I spread cheer to others by giving and coming into environments by spreading joy.”
“The way I spread cheer is by giving compliments to different people,” said Smith, “doesn’t matter if I know them or not.”
Jenkins explained that she spreads cheer to others “by giving and helping out in small ways, ways in which people will remember.”
“Through cultivating cheerfulness within I am able to disseminate it to others,” said Welch.
Welch went on to go into depth on how exploring her most authentic self and attracting experiences helps in cultivating that cheerfulness.
Welch ended with “through these practices I have a genuine supply of cheer that is from a place of love that will naturally exude from my being to others through just moving through the world.”
Cheerfulness can be seen as not just a trait that someone happens to have but a state of being. A state that seemingly makes one feel a sense of positivity that they might want to latch onto. An emotion that can be felt deeply but also be spread toward others and maybe even impact their life as well.
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