{"id":2416,"date":"2012-04-16T11:37:28","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T18:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=2416"},"modified":"2013-11-07T07:24:21","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07T15:24:21","slug":"discouraged-dismayed-dismal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2012\/discouraged-dismayed-dismal\/","title":{"rendered":"Discouraged, Dismayed, and Dismal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Then you may not want to bother reading this.<\/p>\n<p>Especially if you find a certain pleasure in being down and disheartened.<\/p>\n<p>I understand. Too well. So well I empathize.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why I am posting some <b>practical things that help me<\/b> cast down dejection. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Now dispense with your discouragement and depression just enough to read this. Please.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin-bottom:0; color:red\">6 Practical Tips to Discourage Depression<\/h2>\n<p style=\"margin-top:0; font-style:italic; color:green\">Really. They do work!<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Smile<\/strong> at every other person you meet<\/li>\n<li>Do <strong>good<\/strong> to others<\/li>\n<li><strong>Commend<\/strong> something positive in another<\/li>\n<li>Read a <strong>Psalm<\/strong> in the Bible<\/li>\n<li>Ask <strong>God<\/strong> to lift your spirit and cheer your heart<\/li>\n<li>Use the comments below &#8212; and your experience before &#8212; to <strong>add<\/strong> to this list<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>About the first one &#8212; if keeping track is too difficult or if you lose track or if you hate to deprive someone of a smile because it isn&#8217;t his turn, smile at everyone! If you&#8217;re alone, find a mirror and smile at yourself. (Feel free to experiment with different styles of smiles-at-yourself.) If you&#8217;re alone and don&#8217;t have access to a mirror, look up and smile at God. If you don&#8217;t believe in God, oh my &#8212; well, get out and find someone to smile at.<\/p>\n<p>You wonder about the sixth one? It has to do with the law of sowing and reaping. If you plant comfort and encouragement in the lives of others, <strong>your harvest will be comfort and encouragement<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>See, it really ain&#8217;t complicated. Even so, it may be hard for you. But I believe you can do at least one of the above.<\/p>\n<h2>Go for it!<\/h2>\n<p>Oh. And you could also eyeball a couple of pieces I wrote longer ago: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/2006\/oh-make-me-live\/\">Oh, Make Me Live<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/2008\/in-my-distress\/\">In My Distress<\/a>.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>6 practical tips to discourage depression<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,12,999],"tags":[72,894,521,909],"class_list":["post-2416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-lessons-for-living","category-soul-and-spirit","tag-christianity","tag-inspirational","tag-peace","tag-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-CY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}