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    From the March 24, 1987 *Los Angeles Herald Examiner*.  It was written
    by Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko.

            Inverterate Smilers Need a Dose of Reality

      One of my fondest curbstone theories has recently been confirmed
    by genuine scientific research.
      It has to do with why some people are chronically grouchy and
    depressed while others are always bubbling with enthusiasm and
    looking at the bright side of life.
      A psychologist took a close look at students who fell into both
    groups.  He wanted to see how they reacted when they got poor
    grades.
      He found that those who had the gloomier outlook of life
    generally blamed only themselves for their subpar performances.
      In contrast, those who bounce happily through life with big
    smiles on their faces usually found some other reason for their
    failings.  They blamed teachers for not doing a good job or for
    being unfair, or they said that something had distracted them,
    prevented them from doing their best work.  In other words, it
    wasn't their fault.
      After analyzing the excuses of both groups, the psychologist found
    that those who tended to be gloomy were right - they had been at
    fault.
      In contrast, the happiness-mongers were kidding themselves.  They,
    too, were at fault, but they couldn't accept it, so they found
    someone else to blame.
      Thus, the study came to the conclusion that those who were gloomy
    and depressed had a far more realistic view of themselves and life
    in general.  In contrast, the happiness-mongers had a tendency to
    be unrealistic.
      This is what I've always believed:  Show me somebody who is always
    smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you
    somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really
    going on.
      And that most maligned creature, the chronic grouch, is depressed
    because he knows that there's a lot to be depressed about.  He
    knows that every dark cloud doesn't necessarily have a silver
    lining.  It's more likely that the cloud contains acid rain.
      Slats Grobnik once put it neatly when a happiness-monger looked at
    his gloomy face and said:  "Hey, cheer up, things always have a
    way of getting better."
      Slats said:  "If things always have a way of getting better, how
    come funeral parlors do so much business?"
      Somebody else once told him:  "After the storm, there comes the
    rainbow."
      Slats said:  "After the storm, stupid, there comes the flooded
    basement."
      And he had an answer when another happiness-monger told him:
    "Remember, it's always darkest before the dawn."
      Slats said:  "Then how come they waited until the sun came up to
    bomb Pearl Harbor?"
      Just look in the history books.  I defy anyone to show me a
    picture of Abe Lincoln with a big smile on his face.  He may have
    been the most depressed, gloom-filled man ever to hold the office
    of the president.  That's because he knew what was going on and
    that there was a lot to be depressed about.
      In contrast, we have Ronald Reagan, who is seldom seen without a
    slap-happy smile.  That's because - as Reagan himself recently
    told us - he doesn't always know what's going on.
      So we had one president who was gloomy when the most terrible
    weapon known to man was a short-range cannon.  Now we have another
    who can't stop chuckling at a time when mankind has the capacity
    to vaporize itself.
      And that should be enought to make the rest of us stop grinning.
      Or try looking at the pictures of the happy show-biz people who
    are always being shown in People magazine attending parties.  Of
    course they look happy.  Between the hooch and the powder they're
    snorting, they don't know which of their ends is up.
      Contrast their facial expressions with those you see in the
    morning on commuter trains, buses, or behind the wheels of cars.
    These people know exactly where they are and where they are going.
    They are going to work.  That is reality.  And that's why they're
    not giggling.
  So I hope the above mentioned scientific research helps put an end to the
idea that people who smile a lot are in some way better than those who
frown.
  The scientists might even consider Slats Grobnik's theory that smiling is
unnatural, that it defies nature, while frowning is natural since gravity
pulls our faces downward.
  "If nature wanted us to smile all the time," he has said, "then we would
have been born with our heads upside down."
  That is something to think about.