i finished a book!!

...here are the last couple pages...
(read and insert my 'i told you so...' where applicable)
!!!!!!!!!!!!

"People can be happy in almost any situation. External conditions determine well-being much less than we usually think. Extensive studies have shown that the enjoyment of life is neither a question of age nor of gender. It doesn't depend on your IQ, or on how many children you have, or on the size of your bank account. A craftsman in Bangladesh has different but not fewer opportunities for enjoyment than an office worker in Boston. Both--all of us--have to use the opportunities at hand...
...And neuroscience has shown something else: happiness is more than simply the absence of unhappiness. We have dedicated circuits in our heads for positive feelings, enabling pleasure and enjoyment to thwart negative emotions such as sadness and fear...Our ability to make our lives happier rests on these two basic principles: we can strengthen the circuits for the positive feelings with conscious practice, and we can seek out situations that give us pleasure and enjoyment...
-The well-being of body and the well-being of mind are inseparably linked...Exercise and sex have proven the surest means of raising our spirits.
-Activity makes us happier than doing nothing...Our controls over thoughts, intentions, and feelings are closely connected in the brain, so we worry easily when the brain lacks anything else to keep busy. On the other hand, the brain's expectation system releases a sense of anticipation as soon as we set a goal, and we experience triumph when we reach it. Thus, activity almost always leads to positive feelings.
-An alert mind increases a sense of well-being even when it's only observing. Concentrated perception is often accompanied by feelings of elation...This capacity for enjoyment through attentiveness is something we can learn.
-By giving into negative emotions like anger and sadness, not only do we fail to appease them, but we actually reinforce them...
-Variety gives pleasure...When we change our pleasures more frequently, we avoid taking something for granted. And in learning to value the unexpected and to see from new perspectives, we stoke our vitality.
-When in doubt, it's better to have control over our decisions than to have our wishes fulfilled. The control over our own fate is for most of us an absolute condition for happiness and satisfaction. Helplessness is one of the least bearable of all feelings...When a wish is fulfilled only at the price of dependence (going into debt, for example), one usually does better by choosing freedom.
But what is most important of all for well-being is our relationship to other people. It is no exaggeration to equate happiness with friendship and love. The attention we pay to those close to us redounds to our happiness..
The choice has to be yours.
Therefore, the most important task in the search for happiness is to know yourself. We will all discover our own answers. We are six billion people, and there are six billion paths to happiness."
-The Science of Happiness (Stefan Klein, PhD)

AMEN. (ps I don't have a PhD and I've been saying all this all along!)