I'm usually not an emotional sap, but during this particular morning when I was vigorously scrapping the ice from my driver-side window - a sense of raw joy consumed me.  Why in this bitter cold when most people are cursing their existence am I smiling and thinking that life is "Pretty Good. Prettaaaaay, Prettaaaaay, Pretty Good " (my attempt at imitating Larry David)!  Where does my excitement come from and how do I savor the moment?  What I've realized is that the psychology of human nature is focused far more on negative emotions such as depression, anger, and anxiety than on positive emotions such as happiness and satisfaction.  Is this true? Who are the happy people? Does happiness favor those of a particular age, sex, or race? Does wealth enhance well-being? Does happiness come with having certain traits? A particular job? Close friends? Warm climate?  An active faith?

I view myself as "naive optimist" because generally I am a happy person. I just am.  I have a hard time understanding why people that are not in dire straits can be unhappy.  So, I put some thought into why someone's level of happiness may be greater or less based on similar lifestyles and circumstances.  Although, there is no surefire "How to Be Happy" formula, here are a few things that have helped me put my level of happiness into perspective:

1. Happiness doesn't, come from "making it."

What do you long for? Fame? Fortune? Unlimited travel experience?  Retirement? Imagine that I could snap my fingers and give it to you. Would you now be happy? Indeed, you'd be euphoric, in the short run. But gradually you would adapt to your new circumstance and life would return to its normal mix of emotions. To recover the joy, you would now need an even higher high.

As an example - at one extreme, people with disabilities-even those paralyzed after car accidents-typically recover normal levels of day-to-day happiness. At the other extreme, people who've won a state lottery also settle back to their characteristic level of happiness. Happiness is less a matter of getting what we want than wanting what we have.

2. Savor the moment.

Happiness, said Benjamin Franklin, "is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by the little advantages that occur every day."

As a future-oriented person, I periodically remind myself of Pascal's remark that we too often live as if the present were merely our means to the future. "So we never live, but we hope to live-and as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."

To live in the present means, for me, taking delight in the day's simple cherished moments. Happiness isn't somewhere off in the future, but in the pleasures of my morning coffee, listening to Sirius satellite during my commute, or even the day's last moments, sitting on the couch, watching a movie with my special someone.

3. Take control of your time.

There is, nevertheless, a place for setting goals and managing time. Compared to those who've learned a sense of helplessness, those with an "internal focus of control" do better in school, cope better with stress, and live with greater well-being.

One way to feel more empowered is to master our use of time. For happy people, time is "filled and planned," says Oxford University psychologist Michael Argyle. "For unhappy people time is unfilled, open and uncommitted; they postpone things and are inefficient."

To manage time effectively, set big goals, then break them down into daily aims. Writing a book is, for me, too formidable and remote a goal. But writing four pages a week is easy enough. If I repeat this process 52 times over and, presto - my book is done! Although we often overestimate how much we will accomplish in any given week (leaving us frustrated), we generally underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, given just a little progress every week.

4. Act happy.

This is the most important trait of living happy. I am a positive thinker, so it is fitting that I concede to the power of hope-filled optimism. We are as likely to act ourselves into a way of thinking as to think ourselves into action. In experiments, people who pretend to have high self-esteem begin feeling better about themselves. Even when manipulated into a smiling expression, people feel better; when they scowl, the whole world seems to scowl back. So put on a happy face. Pretend optimism. Simulate outgoingness. Going through the motions can trigger the emotions.

5. Seek work and leisure that engage your skills.

Sometimes the challenges of work or home are too great, and we feel stressed. At other times, we're underchallenged and bored. In between these two states is a zone where we feel challenged, but not overmatched. We get absorbed. We lose consciousness of time. We are in a state that Russian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow."

In his studies of writers, dancers, surgeons, chess players, mountain climbers, and the like, Csikszentmihalyi discovered that people find the flow experience satisfying. Even if we make a lower but livable wage, it pays to seek work that we find interesting and challenging.

So pick up your camera. Tune that instrument. Sharpen those woodworking tools. Get out those ballet  slippers. Inflate the basketball. Pull down a stimulating book. Oil the fishing reel. It's time to head out or  invite friends over for drinks. To pull down the Scrabble game. To go for a drive. Rather than vegetating in self-focused idleness, lose yourself in the flow of active work and play. "In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be a gainer," noted Robert Louis Stevenson. "To forget oneself is to be happy."

6. Get rest.

Happy people live active, vigorous lives, yet they reserve time for renewing sleep and solitude. Today, however, many people suffer from shortened sleep, leaving them groggy and unable to get into flow.

So, what increases your level of happiness?
I'd love to hear your comments.

Cheers,

Robert Saric