Turning Unhappiness into Joy

read something from the Newpaper today and found it rather interesting... thought i would share it with you all:

Anyone can be happy. Happiness is a skill that can be taught and learnt.
The first thing we can do is to change the way we think.
We blame our unhappiness on other people or outside things or events.
In reality, our subconsious ways of thinking or interpreting things create our upsets.
Unhappiness is a largely self-inflicted agony.
An identical event - for example, cancer - happening to two people, can trigger completely different responses from them.
One may be unable to accept such an unfair affliction and become stuck in resentment, fear and helplessness.
The other may see cancer as a very common occurence which also happened to her. She proceeds to handle its treatment in a calm, intelligent manner. She sees the enforced down-time as an opportunity to play mahjong - a game she loves but never has the time for.
How could one person be struck in bitterness and powerlessness and another sees cancer as an opportunity for enjoyment.
It is not what happens to us that makes us unhappy, but how we interpret what happened that causes unhappiness.
The actions we take can make the difference between surviving and growing from a challenge or being killed by it.
Without our being aware of it, our minds are incessantly analysing, judging, interpreting and making meanings about everything and everyone we encounter in our lives.
Our ceaseless meaning-making is always unconscious and too frequently, our assumptions and conclusions create stress, unhappiness, fear and powerlessness in us.
The quality and content of our lives today have been created from those millions of unconscious meanings we made about everything. Changing our thoughts ultimately changes our lives.
Study after study confirms that happy people live healthier and longer lives than unhappy ones.
Happiness is not a luxury to be enjoyed only when all the circumstances in our lives are perfect - it is fundamental to our quality of life, health and longevity now.
The second path to happiness lies in changing our personal world - to create the work, activities, relationships, experiences and things which bring us joy, peace of mind, purpose and success.
When we pour our greatest creativity, energy, enthusiasm and love into doing what we enjoy and are passionate about, the ideal conditions for success and fulfilment are right there.

-Wong Chia Siew