Stop watching the news!

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Hard but possible. Focus on doing what you like.

The Stoics provide advice in this area. This example below is one of many

You just have to live within your own little world, otherwise you'll go nuts. Life is short.

Act so as to ennoble others and yourself. Learn how your ego expresses itself and how to suppress it. Recognize that what people say is usually less important than their motive. Study science.

Concentrate on doing things, to stop the mind dwelling on the bad, is my way. But especially concentrate on what you can do for other people, other creatures and the world, then you can at least be content that you have done all you personally can. And, lets be honest, if everyone of the billions of people on the planet spent only half their time doing that, then that vast bulk of human power would solve all the problems easily.

But then there comes the big bonus, because if you do, work in your local charity shop, take phone calls for mental health lines, help out at the animal shelter, march with human rights groups, join tree planting volunteers, pick up litter in the park etc. etc. whatever suits your nature and preferably several such. Then you get a big extra. Because, besides having you mind occupied, and gaining self contentment, you also increase vastly your social network and your prominence in that network. Which brings vast opportunities for companionship, love, education, physical health, health care, travel, wider horizons, and learning from others to appreciate the local gifts, around you which you may have overlooked, and all that is all an extra.

Perhaps a happy medium is achieved when we realize that nothing is really permanent. Seeking may reinforce a notion of lack of something and the more you seek it the more it seems to elude you and recede into a distant horizon.

Einstein said: "If you want to understand the theoretical physicists do not merely listen to what they say, observe what they do." The same principle applies to all people in all situations.

Drugs and alcohol?

Focus on the things that matter to you and that will make you enjoy life more. And learn the signs people display when showing who they are if they are troubled individuals and whether or not they should be avoided.

To start with ... "To thine own self be true".

Simple!!!

Life is what you make it!!!

There will be and always have been bad, evil, cruel individuals!!!

You do not have to be one of those, unless you are an cruel, bad, and evil individual!!!

You have asked an ancient question - maybe the most ancient question. And ancient questions usually have ancient answers. The problem with ancient answers - for modern folk - is that fewer and fewer modern folk speak or understand “ancient”.

So here’s a modern translation.
Our species was designed by evolution to live in small, nomadic groups of mostly related individuals, who foraged for food.

When we discovered we could grow our own food, we took up a lifestyle we were not evolved to fit - living in large, stationary groups of mostly strangers. We moved from a small egalitarian society to a large hierarchical society, and altered our environment so rapidly that our physiology still has not had time to adapt.

So... in order to function in a way that is even remotely satisfactory to our stone age bodies and brains, we have to retrain our minds, to counterbalance the evolutionary mismatch.

This means some kind of regular practice. A lot of the early practices developed for this purpose were expressed in metaphor and myth, much of which is unacceptable to modern, educated minds. So we have to be able to see past the allegorical renderings to the objective advice at the core.

One such practice, that the West has recently borrowed from the East, mostly stripped of its mythology now, is meditation. An alternative practice, that might be more suited to the Western mind, is simply studying the known science regarding the forces that made humans human.

When we deeply understand our own nature, we lose our most reliable excuses for being unhappy. It’s not an easy or quick path, but there probably isn’t one. It is, at least, a possible path, if pursued to fruition.

Best wishes.

Stop watching the news....the future looks grim. Concentrate on your family relationships.

Well that’s the trick isn’t it?

It's been like that since man started walking upright, it's never gonna change. Man is a destructive animal.

Happiness will never be a permanent state for any human being. We will have moments of happiness, and , if we live well and are lucky we will have prolonged periods of satisfaction. That is the best we can hope for.

“If you can't be happy with nothing, you won't be happy with anything” which might sound trite, but we have very little experience with having nothing, which might engender more appreciation for what we do have, even to appreciating not being lying, exploitive, and cruel, which let’s admit you might have seen coming, and likely even chose in a weird way, and will likely choose again, in the “pursuit of happiness”

so it can easily be one of those things where the more you pursue it, the farther away it gets, and having that perspective would naturally attract you to the exploitive, abusing, etc, rather than those you prefer.

We live in such abundance that its easy to become complacent and unappreciative of what we do have, and the pursuit of nothing will engender appreciation, if done right. A night alone in a cave—or even an empty room, or a sensory deprivation tank—will bring you face to face with your “monster,” and if you can make peace with it then things invariably improve. This is basically meditation with all outside stimuli removed, and you should even hallucinate pretty strongly at some point

best of luck, and don’t get discouraged when you can only go ten minutes, or an hour, without running screaming from your monster, ok; 24 hours of deliberate nothing takes a while to achieve. Like a year.

loved fernapple’s advice also, but this will be for when that just seems too alien to even start practicing, lets say, bc those ppl are likely going to seem incomprehensible to you at first; instant gratification is a hard drug, and we are pretty much all addicted

Do not allow your happiness to be dependent upon the actions of others. There ARE “good” people in the world. Be one and you will be happy.

Easy, just pick your associations.

Scrambled.

Happiness comes from within. Practice meditation.

Lasting happiness is not possible. One can achieve some contentment by embracing Nihilism, Existentialism and Absurdism.

Who are "others"? I have a handful of people close to me who I can trust, and I have a dog and a puppy that are my soul mates. I'm sure small happiness is happening in your life right now.