Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
I'd been thinking this was Mark Twain again, but I did a little google-searching and found it was really Abraham Lincoln. Interesting that many historians believe that Lincoln was at times clinically depressed, and he surely must have been deeply troubled and worried, yet he must also have been deeply satisfied with his life and the great changes he brought about.
Pretty much all my life I've been living in a holding pattern, waiting to move on to something better, or different, at least. From the time I moved away from my family's home at eighteen, through going to college, dropping out then going back, every time I changed my major, through every job change and new place of residence since then, I've been working and just getting by while saving up money, trying to prepare for my next phase. Which was supposed to be the right one, the true path that I want my life to follow.
Over and over again my plans were derailed by job loss, or legal or family or health troubles, or economic slumps or crashes of some kind. Now it appears that the present Great Period of Economic Adjustment will be a long, slow and halting one, and many people will probably never be as well off as before the crash, though we may be content and prosperous again. In fact, as skimpy as my "lifestyle" is now, every day I see many people around me who are worse off, and more mired in hopelessness. So it seems to me now the best course is to make up my mind to find ways to be happier with what I have and where I am, in the here and now.
http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/08/30/12-things-happy-people-do-differently/, which prescribes in twelve bullet points some ways to change your mind and be happier despite hard circumstances.
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