Is happiness something over which people have no control, or can people choose to be happy?

Happiness is something that means different things to different people. Overall it seems that happiness is influenced by the way we choose to think about ourselves, our place in the world, and the world around us and how we act in the world. That differentiates the happy people from the less happy people. For example, for one person it may mean being in a relationship whereas for someone else it may mean feeling you have the ability to handle whatever life throws at you.

Also, happiness is something that needs to be worked for and only you know what makes you happy. You can choose to control how and when you achieve happiness or you can wait and never gain it. We can choose to be happy by accepting our daily life as it comes, as it is. We just have to learn how to deal with it by adding a little bit of "hope and faith" that better days will come.

To reach happiness is to know first what it is. Depends on you, if you are stuck in a really bad situation or messed up, you can always try to look for happiness in the moment. Remember, happy moments long a very short time. Enjoy them and don't take advantage of it.

You can see that you have some control over your happiness. Even though a certain proportion of your happiness is beyond out of your hands, is determined by genetics and by circumstances. You can increase your happiness level by focusing on those areas in your life that you can control.

You might choose to control your attitude, the way you choose to interpret situations, and the way you think about yourself. If you think about this, and the fact that it could be accountable for around 40% of your happiness, this could take a big difference in your life.