5 Way to Be Happier

1) PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE PRICE OF FUEL.

Why not? Because there’s very little, if anything, you can do to change it. So only pay enough attention to decide if you can afford it, and then don’t monitor it anymore to see if it will go down. Don’t bemoan how expensive it is. Doing this will drive you crazy. You can’t change it. Celebrate the fact that modern technology makes it possible to go see our friends 20 miles away pretty easily. Turning on your car is easier then hooking up a horse and buggy!

2) IGNORE SPORTS TEAMS EXCEPT WHEN THEY WIN.

When I was at work at the newspaper, it used to amaze me how froth-at-the-mouth ticked off the sports reporters (their office was right near my desk) will get over anything. They will easily work themselves into a foaming rage over which coach sold out to an enemy team, which top player was stupidly traded, how the announcer always seems to be rooting for the other team, etc. I recommend my approach: ignore your team until they win something major, then emerge gleefully forth to partake in the after-win revelry (or office company party, as the case may be).

3) BRING AN INTERESTING NOVEL, KINDLE, OR OTHER PORTABLE ENTERTAINMENT WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES.

If you aren’t the reading type, substitute “other hand-held entertainment” (like a Nintendo DS or Sudoku book) for “interesting novel.” If you keep something with you, you will have instant entertainment at all waiting times: in store lines waiting to purchase your margarita mix, when you are at the bank and the person in front of you wants to make a $700 withdrawal in all $5 bills, when you are waiting in the dentist’s office and all that’s in the waiting room are magazines about fishing, when you have to stand outside a public bathroom in the mall waiting for your significant other to hurry up and finish already, when you are with Aunt Edith in the restaurant and she insists on the waiter giving her a detailed analysis of each item on the menu before she orders and you are so starving you find yourself wondering how the tablecloth would taste with a little butter–you get the idea. All these scenarios could be very frustrating waiting times, but if you have some mind-stimulating reading material with you: NO FRUSTRATION. No frustration= happier you.

4) TURN OFF YOUR TV AND LIVE YOUR LIFE.

I rarely watch TV. In fact, I sometimes feel depressed when I do, especially if it is during the day. TV, in most cases, amounts to you spending your precious free time watching professionally done-up, really good-looking people usually doing things way more exciting than everyday life. Yeah, that girl on the TV is looking good in tight leather doing obscenely unrealistic fight scenes while you are on the couch with a bag of Doritoes. Solution: turn off TV, sign up for kickboxing class, feel good because you can actually BE leather-fighting-girl, even if it’s only in your mind. Life is so full of good things you can actually do rather than watching other people do them.

5) BASK IN WONDER.

I read somewhere that wonder is a bulky emotion that crowds out all the others in your head. So indulge in it! Set up a telescope at night to look at stars, go for a walk in the woods, look up pictures online of tall mountain ranges or closeups of crazy-looking tropical plants. Indulge your natural curiosity.