I prefer the following alternative interpretation of the phrase: Happiness comes more easily to those who have adopted a certain way of looking at things. In this view, attitude precedes-and determines-the quality of our emotional state.

At one level, it should be easy to understand how our attitudes can shape our emotions. Findings show that every time we experience an emotion-be it anger, anxiety, sadness, happiness, joy, love, or pride-it is always preceded by a set of thoughts that are unique to that emotion. For example, you may have been angry at your boss because you didn't get a promotion that you felt you deserved. The anger at your boss, in this case, is a response to the following type of thought: "My boss is preventing me from achieving a desired goal." Likewise, you may have felt anxious during a taxi ride to the airport because you weren't sure if you would make it to your flight on time. In this case, the anxiety was preceded by thoughts pertaining to uncertainty about catching your flight.

If emotions are always preceded by thoughts that are idiosyncratic to the emotion in question, it follows that we can change the emotion by changing the thoughts. Theoretically speaking, we could experience an entirely different emotion by merely re-interpreting a situation. For instance, the anger you feel at your boss for denying you a promotion can turn into gratitude if you focused, instead, on the fact that he hasn't fired you.

Sounds simple, right? Anytime you experience a negative emotion, all you need to do is to come up with a more positive re-interpretation of the event that induced the negative emotion and voila, you will start feeling positive!

It's simple in concept but difficult in practice. Further, you may wonder whether such positively biased re-interpretations are even desirable. You could argue that such positive reinterpretations could lead you to become a delusional personality-someone who doesn't see reality as it is.

I will revisit this point later. For now, let's focus on how one could go about re-interpreting outcomes and events to more frequently experience happiness.

There are four attitudes that are useful, all of which share the common underlying feature of directing thoughts toward a more favorable perspective. The first is adopting a more favorable perspective in interpreting the actions of other people.

Say you're in a taxicab and the driver appears to be taking a longer-than-normal route to your destination. An obvious interpretation is that the driver is trying to take advantage of you: he is trying to extract a higher fare from you. Alternative interpretations are also possible, including: (1) this is the only route he knows, (2) there is construction going on in the shorter route, (3) the route you know, although shorter in terms of distance, is longer in terms of time, etc.

Let's examine how your interactions with the driver would differ if you were to entertain these alternative interpretations of his behavior. If you adopted the obvious negative perspective-namely, that the driver is out to cheat you-you would naturally be angry. As a result, you would probably not chat with him during the drive and further, you would probably not tip him. If, instead, you entertained the first alternative possibility (that he is unaware of the shorter route), you would probably say, "I think I know a shorter route" and wait for his response. If you entertained the second alternative possibility, you may say, "Is there construction going on in the other (shorter) route?" and again, wait to for his response. The interaction would undoubtedly be more pleasant if you were to adopt a more charitable interpretation of his behavior. As a result, even if the driver were actually cheating you, you would be more likely to get happiness-enhancing favors from him (e.g., he would perhaps assist you with your bags when you arrive at your destination, or switch to a radio station of your choice, etc.).

If your objective is to more regularly experience happiness, it follows that you would be better off by entertaining more positive interpretations of others' behaviors first, and only turn to the negative interpretations after ruling out the positive possibilities. Of course, you could only do this if the situation is relatively ambiguous and lends itself to multiple interpretations. (For example, there are few alternative positive interpretations when being mugged.) However, research shows that even in ambiguous situations-wherein people could legitimately entertain positive interpretations-, most people's natural inclination is to turn to negative interpretations first. Recall the last time you could not find your wallet after the cleaning lady had come in? Most people in this situation first entertain the thought that the cleaning lady stole the wallet. This leads to a perfunctory search for the wallet which, in turn, makes it less likely that the wallet will be found, thus enhancing faith in the negative interpretation-a vicious cycle.

The second attitude involves adopting a more favorable interpretation in forecasting the impact of a present outcome on future outcomes.

Here's a fact: We're essentially incapable of figuring out the long-term consequences of a particular outcome, such as missing a flight, failing to get a particular job, and so on. One reason for this is that we are incapable of assessing the relevance of particular outcomes for important long-term goals. Take the taxicab example again. Say, for instance, that you were able to rule out all alternative explanations for the driver's behavior and are thus forced to conclude that he took the longer route to extract a higher fare from you. Is this necessarily such a bad outcome (providing the extra money you paid isn't large)? Isn't it possible that some positive outcomes came about because of the driver's behavior? Perhaps the longer route was more picturesque. Or, maybe the longer route gave you the opportunity to have a long and meaningful conversation with the driver. Or perhaps you would not have run into that other guest who checked in with you-and with whom you have now made dinner plans-had you arrived earlier.

The point is, almost always, an outcome that we initially judge as negative triggers a set of positive outcomes that could only have occurred because of the "negative" outcome. Thus, it is almost always possible to retrospectively judge a negative outcome as a blessing in disguise, but only if we choose to adopt this attitude. (Needless to say, I am leaving out extremely negative events- like the death of a child, or killing someone in an accident-here.)