Being on vacation is a perfect time to think about happiness. What does it take to be happy?

I don’t have time to read many magazines but the opportunity presented itself poolside in Southern CA last month. Someone had left a copy of ‘Health’  for me to enjoy.and there on the ‘Best Life Now’ page, was a little blurb about happiness.

Actually, it was really about those times when ‘happiness’ doesn’t happen.

Humans have a funny way of conditioning happiness on other things.

For example, “I will be happy when my daughter’s life settles down” or “Happiness is only a new job away.”

And often we don’t have control over the outcome we are looking for or at the very least, our crystal ball can’t tell us when the much anticipated event will happen. Or worse yet, the change does occur and it turns out that our happiness isn’t in tow.

So what do we do?

Janice Kaplan is the author of “The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year of Looking on the Bright Side Tra....”

Her message is that happiness (or our definition of it) is binary – we are either happy or not. And chasing it can be frustrating.

Gratitude, on the other hand, is completely under our control. We can choose to be grateful – even when things are not going swimmingly well.

Her suggestion is to start a diary – not really my cup of tea. But I did like her idea of whispering to ourselves what you are grateful for.

So, next time you feel that happiness is alluding you, perhaps changing your focus to what there is to be grateful for, will help.

Jeanette