We often think of certain attributes such as optimism and pessimism as givens, permanent and ingrained into our personalities, something that we have little control over or can do nothing about. That’s not a very helpful point of view. It renders us helpless, powerless, victims of either our genetics or early child upbringing. However, scientists […]

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde In the mid-1980s, a number of psychologists and cardiologists studied 120 men from San Francisco who had recently had a first heart attack. The researchers provided training to change the personalities of these men from type A (aggressive, […]

Life involves stress, even heartache, for all of us. Furthermore, studies of people who are happier than average show that they experience the same number of failures, disappointments and pain as anyone. They are happier not because life treats them differently, but because they use different strategies for dealing with their difficulties, strategies that can […]