I watched an excellent episode of the Charlie Rose show - http://www.charlierose.com - last night where he interviewed a series of scientists and academics on the new scientific thinking on happiness. Yes, Americans are not the happiest people in the world and while buddhist monks did rate the highest in all studies, people in Latin American and Asian third world countries came out on top. The French and Japanes came out close to the bottom. A positive outlook on life it seems - no matter how bad things seem materially - is the secret to happiness! Martin Seligman, the Director of The Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania put forward an exercise they have developed that guranteed an increase in your happines quotient within a month. Every night, before going to sleep, write down 3 things that went well for you today (made you happy, raised a good feeling in you, felt succesful.) Do this religiously every night for four weeks and then assess your happiness levels. I started yesterday - let's give it a shot!