Happiness is not the result of good genes, or good luck.  We make our own happiness!  Want proof?  There’s plenty of scientific evidence in Martin Seligman’s bestselling book “Authentic Happiness.” Happiness can be cultivated by identifying and nurturing many of the traits that we already have, including kindness, humor, optimism and generosity.  I love that this book has the word “Authentic” in the title, authentic comes from the same root as the word “author.” We are in fact the authors of our own life.  We can literally choose to be happy.  One of the cluster of strengths that Seligman talks about he labels “Transcendence” and defines this as the “emotional strengths that reach outside and beyond you to connect you to something larger and more permanent: to other people, to the future, to evolution, to the divine, or to the universe. The attributes in this cluster are: appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, optimism, sense of purpose, forgiveness, humor, and enthusiasm.  These are all topics that we have studied in Wisdom News!  There is a “Signature Strengths” test you can take for fr.ee on Dr. Seligman’s site: