Read "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. Frankl was beaten, tortured and starved as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. By helping other prisoners, he found happiness and meaning in his life. Frankl wrote:

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

Malala Yousafzai, 21, is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate. At age 15, she was shot in the head by the Taliban. She said:

"Earlier this year, someone asked me, 'After everything you've been through, how do you keep from being hopeless?'" After talking about all the things to be grateful for in my own life, I said, 'I think it's pointless to be hopeless. If you are hopeless, you waste your present and your future.'"

You can be happy ABOUT certain things without being happy as a person (i am not saying you're not happy as a person; i'm just pointing out the difference). i have a lot of real problems, some of which may render me homeless in the not-so-distant future, and some of which may render me dead as well (in which case i won't mind being homeless, unless that precedes my death). other things rightly concern me as well. i am still capable of laughing when i watch murphy brown in syndication, or eat lox on a bagel, or kiss my guy. that is momentary, situational happiness and collectively may raise my mood, but it doesn't make me a happy person. i am doing what i can toward solving my serious problems but i am also aware that i cannot solve every problem and i really haven't got a good chance of avoiding disaster. this doesn't make me a pessimist, and it also doesn't mean i am causing my own unhappiness. in fact, micro-managing in some areas of my life would be tantamount to avoiding seeing the big picture and hastening the disaster. i don't think there is a solution. i don't think there is a formula. everyone's situation is different, and everyone's happiness is predicated upon different things.

g

I don't believe we can choose our emotions. I believe emotions are consequences of our choices about our actions and our thoughts. I don't believe anyone can feel truly happy while beating their , for example, although they might pretend they are to ease their conscience.

I do think it's fairly common to lie about how you are feeling, particularly if you have negative feelings a lot. I think that we pressure people to feel good and be happy all the time and that often leads to people pretending they're happy when they're not. I believe religion is particularly bad about pressuring people to feel certain ways and to fake it, if they don't.

I don't want to imply that unhappy people are all beaters, just that when we're unhappy it's probably because something is wrong. The being beaten is often told they shouldn't feel hurt and I think we have a lot of people walking around feeling like they shouldn't feel bad when others are treating them badly. Instead of telling ourselves that we can and should be happy no matter what, I think we should honor our feelings and the messages they are giving us, use that information to change our lifestyles, inside our heads and out, and learn to live truly happy lives. I think truly happy lives are based in treating others right and surrounding ourselves with those who treat us right.

Unfortunately some of us are fes fes zu (Farsi for slow poke). I often need lots of time to make decisions and the more important the decision the longer the time I need. Micro-decisions, yeah if one has the genetic make-up.

I try to always think of the Stoic admonition that circumstances do not have emotions or feelings, you do. And you can choose the ones you have, and retain.

Amor Fati

I used to get colds, ear infections, and every winter I'd get flu so bad it would almost go into pneumonia, etc. until I changed my diet.

I dropped red meat, white flour, white sugar, and most processed food, and after that, infections, colds, etc became a distant memory.

After I suffered through withdrawal, coughing up pounds of junk from my lungs for weeks, my running speed and distance suddenly doubled. It was like I became a cyborg who couldn't get tired.

It's just wrong. You are describing choosing an action, not choosing to be happy.

You can choose your action, but you cannot "choose" to be happy. What you are saying is you can choose your action that may change the situation where you can be happy. That is VERY different from saying you can choose to be happy. Some situation does not change no matter how hard you try. "Choosing to be happy" would mean you can just be happy by choosing it, even without going to the doctor and even while coughing and being sick.

If happiness requires an action to change the situation, then it proves that you cannot be "choose" to be happy in that situation, thereby admitting that happiness is dictated by the situation, not just your will.

You won't be happy if you're in a concentration camp, no matter how hard you "choose." You probably can't "choose" to be happy if your hand is stuck inside a deep fryer. Happiness is an emotion. You cannot always choose an emotion.

I hate the claim that "Happiness is a choice." Not only is it factually false, it gives people excuse to persecute unhappy people by claiming, "You're just unhappy because you did not try hard enough, you could have always chosen to be happy."

Get well, feel better. Being sick should be reserved for the young who have the strength to recover faster.

U will feel better b4 u know it ! ? Rest .

Feel better, rock star!

I work on this as well. The philosphy of taking charge of your reactions to events you can not control is nothing new, but it astonishes me that more folk do not take it to the next step.