New Years Resolutions and Happiness

Now is the time of the year that everybody starts to think of New Years resolutions. Most of them deal with losing weight and getting in better shape, and perhaps eating better, but one that I'd like to suggest is "be happier." I talk about being happy in my book "Feel Great Feel Alive," and I'll admit I felt a little strange writing that chapter. I was going to try to tell people how to be happier, and I had to ask myself how happy I really was. I knew I had my ups and downs, but I was sure I was relatively happy most of the time.
But of course, when we start talking about happiness, we have to ask what happiness really is. If you asked a dozen or so people, I'm sure you would get many different replies. What is happiness to one person may not be happiness to another. But there are things in common: cheerfulness, a feeling of self-satisfaction, self-satisfied, and so on. Another important question in relation to happiness is: what creates it, or what do you need to be happy. Many people would put money near the top of their list, and even the people that admit that money wouldn't necessarily bring them happiness say that " a little money would make them a little happier." I can't argue with this. It probably would, at least in the short run. But in reality, Lincoln was right when he said, "people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be." Your mind plays a large role in how happy you are, and this is born out in numerous studies of the subject. According to these studes everyone has a happiness "set point;" this is, in a sense, their average happiness; they can vary from it, but they're always pulled back to it. It's as if there is an elastic band pulling them back. What is important is that this set point is at different positions for different people. This is one reason why some people appear to be fairly happy most of the time, and other are gloomy much of the time. It is, of course possible to adjust this "set point" upward, but you have to work at it. Anyway, Happy New Year, and I really mean it.