10 Ways to Find the Happiness in Front of You

By Addie Johnson

We struggle with war, poverty, global warming, rising crime rates, and a barrage of news, hardly any of it good. We hear of people getting sick, getting divorced, or dying. Celebrities have fabulous lives, but you don't, and the "if only's" threaten to win the day: "My life would be sweet if only I were richer, more famous, thinner, younger, older, had a better job, lived in a different city..."

But happiness is all around you. And it doesn't care how much money you have or the circumstances of your life. Click through this gallery of tips on how to look on the bright side and find the happiness in front of you.

Content from "Life Is Sweet" by Addie Johnson. Used by permission from Conari Press. "Life Is Sweet" (copyright 2008) is available wherever books are sold.

Find Lost Friends

I recently took some time to follow up on the impulse I get every week or so to seek out people that I've lost touch with over the years. I don't know what we did before the Internet. It took only a little time to shoot a few quick emails around the country, and within 24 hours I had baby pictures, recent histories, and writing clips. But the interesting thing was that all three people I got in touch with had been thinking about contacting me a couple of days before getting my email. It was as if I had sent out a psychic detective to people I once had a very close connection with, and before I got around to following up, half the work had already been done. So the next time you think, "Hey, I wonder what ever happened to So-and-So," you might surprise them by tracking down their email address and telling them you got their psychic message.