How to be Happy - The only way you're ever going to be happy animated

A few days ago, I wake up to the coldest and snowiest day we’ve had. I go outside to warm up the car, and my first thought is “This sucks!” But after a few seconds, another thought enters my head: “How cool is it that you’re going to warm up the car, so that when your girlfriend comes down, she won’t be cold? You couldn’t do that if it wasn’t freezing.” And I thought, “Wow, this is an opportunity for me to really live the ideas I’ve been reading about in positive psychology lately.” So I get into the car and turn the key, but now it won’t start. I’m freezing and the battery is dead. And again, my initial instinct kicks in and I want to say, “This is the worst morning I’ve ever had!” And then another thought comes to my mind: “This is awesome. It’s another opportunity for you to show that you can fix any problem, especially something this small. Can you convince a stranger to help you jump start the car?” And I thought, “Okay, that’s kind of cool.” And by that time, my girlfriend comes out, and of course I use her to convince a male stranger to help us. When he pulled up his car, he might have been slightly disappointed to see that the cute girl also had a boyfriend, but we actually got to know each other, and it turns out I have a really cool neighbor. So I hook up the cars, and in two seconds I have a working car. And for some reason, when I get back in the car, I feel like the happiest man alive. That is, until I start driving the Mustang and realize that I’m swerving and sliding everywhere like crazy. And at this point, I really really want to be negative, but I look over at my girlfriend and surprise myself with what I say, “How cool is it that I get to practice driving a Mustang in this weather? If I can drive this, I can drive anything.” And she said, “Yeah, that’s a really cool way to look at it,” and that turned out to be one of the happiest mornings I’ve ever had. And even though I mess up with this constantly, even with stupid little things like spilling something on my shirt, I had done it right that morning. I had turned the worst possible morning into one of the happiest mornings of my life. Every great thinker will tell you that there is only one way, literally only one way to attain happiness and positivity, and here it is in the words of Eckhart Tolle from A New Earth, “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” I have seen this applied to everything from my example to my friends who lose their job to my friends who get cancer. Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, has similar ideas of how some people are capable of doing this even in concentration camps. It’s pretty safe to assume that almost every one of us has much better circumstances than found in a concentration camp, so there is no excuse! There is literally no excuse for why we shouldn’t all have happiness in our lives! No matter how much we optimize our lives, we will never have control over the stimulus; however, the one thing no one can ever take away from you is your ability to choose your response.