Get infected with happiness. Finally, surround yourself insofar as possible with people who are happy themselves and who support you to be happy. Being around people who are chronically unhappy – who can’t see the positives, who ‘catastrophize,’ who make negative assumptions about their lives and about life in general, who have (and verbalize) unsupportive and unhappy self-talk – will make it much more difficult for you to cultivate your own happiness. Don’t get me wrong: it’s important to have friends, family and colleagues who will accept and empathize with your initial venting and unhappiness when something difficult happens in your life. But then you want the folks around you to support you to move through those difficult emotions to re-find your happiness. In other words, have people in your life who will help you build your psychological immune system, rather than compromise it.
It’s powerful to realize that our happiness is largely in our control, rather than an artifact of some ideal set of external circumstances. Once you recognize that, you’re well on your way to a truly good life.