History’s great thinkers tell you how to get happy

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People have been pondering happiness since ancient times

Aristotle, Jane Austen, Abraham Lincoln and others offer their wisdom

CNN  — 

It’s almost like clockwork: Just when things in our lives are going well, a problem at work or school or with a loved one will crop up to bring us down.

Even if “getting happy” is something we actively pursue as a goal, it can be a struggle to find happiness and hold onto it. Those unhappy events seem to keep coming. How do happy people get happy and return to a happy state when these hiccups arise?

We turn to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose outlook on happiness translates well to modern times.

“Whatever creates or increases happiness or some part of happiness, we ought to do; whatever destroys or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its opposite, we ought not to do,” he wrote. So we should stay away from people, things and situations that make us feel unhappy, and surround ourselves with those that make us feel happy.

“Brave New World” author Aldous Huxley wrote, “Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.” Go out and get busy! Find a hobby! Before you know it, you’ll realize how happy you’ve become.

Happy people choose to be happy now, not later. Why waste any time? “Be happy in this moment. This moment is your life,” wrote Persian philosopher Omar Khayyam in his poem “the Rubaiyat.”

Could this be one of the first “YOLOs” in history? (The acronym stands for “you only live once.”)

Accomplished people throughout history offer their wisdom about the search for happiness, which we hope will get you feeling and staying happy in no time.

But please don’t quote President Abraham Lincoln saying that “most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Sounds good, right?

Lincoln didn’t actually say it, according to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency’s Chris Wills. It was inaccurately attributed to him after his death.

However, “The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful,” says Wills, is the real deal.