I have a book of Eastern Philosophy that I read every morning.  It is filled with quotes for each day of the year.  Those quotes are usually about the impermanence of things, the acceptance of life's situations and death's certainty, and there are a great many entries about happiness.  The book refers to happiness not as a state achieved from external success, but from an internal place of practice, much like one would practice an instrument or a golf swing.  The more you practice a particular feeling, the more habitual it becomes as a daily state of being.  Children seem to have this naturally.  Happiness seems to come to them so easily from no place at all.  


I have used a tool for years that I call "Shifting Attention."  It is the simple practice of focusing on an object, a thought, a memory, a piece of music, or anything with which I associate a joyous, uplifted feeling.  If my mind is filled with thoughts of worry, pessimism, or fear, I use this exercise to send my mind, my thoughts, into a more uplifting, powerful direction.  It is not an attempt to stick my head in the sand.  Over the years, I have learned that worry, pessimism, and fear do not solve anything.  On the contrary, it only seems to add to the problem.  From a higher emotional vibration of optimism, joy, or happiness, I seem to have more energy and more internal "space" for a new perspective, a new moment of inspiration to enter into my mind.  This affects the way that I feel.  It is from this place of feeling that I seem to be able to move in a new direction with a new outlook.  I choose to affect the way that I feel right now and that seems to make all of the difference to my state of well-being.


There is always time for me to go back to feeling crappy, if that is what I choose, but usually once I have aligned my thoughts and feelings with a higher emotional vibration, I have no desire to go backward.