An except from the wonderful book How to win friends and Influence People I would suggest everyone to read at some point in their life.

" 'Action seems to follow feeling but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there...'

Everybody in the world is seeking happiness - and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.

It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing the same thing; both may have an equal amount of money and prestige, and yet one may be miserable and the other happy. Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I have seen just as many happy, poor peasants toiling with their primitive tools in the devastating heat of the tropics as I have seen in air-conditioned offices of New york, Chicago, or Los Angeles.

'There is nothing either good or bad' said Shakespeare, 'but thinking makes it so.'

Abe Lincoln once remarked that 'most folks are about as happy as they make their minds to be." He was right. I saw a vivid illustration of that truth as I was walking up the stairs of the Long Island Railroad station in New York. Directly in front of me thirty or forty crippled boys on canes and crutches were struggling up the stairs. One boy had to be carried up. I was astonished at their laughter and gaiety. I spoke about it to one of the men in charge of the boys 'oh yes,' he said, 'when a boy realizes that he is going to be a cripple for life, he is shocked at first, but after he gets over the shock, he usually resigns himself to his fate and then becomes as happy as normal boys."

I felt like taking my hat off to those boys. They taught me a lesson I hope I shall never forget...

... Whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would like to do; and hten, without veering off direction, you will move straight to the goal. Keep your mind on great and splendid things you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding away, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your desires, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the element it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and that thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual... Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude, the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the Chrysalis."