When your world seems to be falling apart, you can always count on someone telling you to look on the bright side. It's as if positivity is something you can summon at will. But what if happiness really was within your control, and all you needed to do to experience profound joy was to change a few small things in your everyday life?
Far from being a kooky new-age idea, the 'happiness as a choice' philosophy is really about taking responsibility for yourself, says Dr Timothy Sharp. He's the founder and 'chief happiness officer' at The Happiness Institute, Australia's first organisation devoted to enhancing happiness in individuals, families and organisations.
It's about taking your emotional health into your own hands by making the decision to be happy, by looking for real solutions instead of focusing on your problems, and by interpreting what happens to you and around you differently to preserve your mental wellbeing. That is, looking at the glass half full instead of half empty.
'Happiness is a term that covers a range of positive emotions,' Sharp says. 'But it should be noted that no one can be 100 per cent happy 100 per cent of the time. True happiness involves recognising that, as humans, it's normal to experience the full range of emotions including 'negative' ones.
'The key is responding to and managing these negative emotions so that they don't unduly or excessively impact on functioning and that they don't persist for too long. It is also important to try to learn from unpleasant and difficult circumstances.'
Happiness is not about having money or material possessions, because whatever positive feelings we derive from these tend to be short-lived, Sharp says.