With the advent of spring, an atmosphere of happiness springs all around. Spring time is always a blissful delight. Multi colored tulips adorn the fresh gardens and pale pink cherry blossoms sprinkle their petals like snow upon the newly green grass. The city?s energy fully charged from the vital, warming rays of the sun brings a feeling of new beginnings. Spring is in the air. It is the time to sing, dance and enjoy the beautiful colors all around.

The beginning of spring offers us a chance to review and assess something very important for our own happiness ? how to color ourselves in the vibrant, happy and true spirit of the spring? How to make our attitude towards life colorful?

We are all in charge of our attitudes. In the words of one spiritual leader, ?The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past, we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.?

Think whether a glass half-filled with water, is ?half empty? or ?half full?? Pause for a moment and think whether we tend to see the dark side of the situations or the brighter side? It is very common to find fault with others as a reaction to our own inadequacies. We have the habit of negative thinking. But we don?t accept this fact. The media is surviving on highlighting the strife, war crime and domestic turmoil. The good deeds and constructive outcomes are never BREAKING NEWS for the media. The advertisements play on what?s ?wrong? with us to promote the ?right? product. Parents are quicker to notice their kids? errant behavior but when it comes to reward their positive actions, it rarely happens.

Let us make a springing start this spring. Let us start seeing the good in others and appreciate the good in ourselves. Let us color our thinking in a new positive color. Staying optimistic can become as much of a habit as negative thinking. We must acknowledge all the bountiful gifts we receive daily from the CREATOR, it is a part of finding happiness.

Charity stems from gratefulness, and it is one of the basic ways to happiness. In the words of 19th century writer Washington Irving : ?An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather?.

It?s beyond our ability to control everything that happens to us or those around us. But the CREATOR has given us the extraordinary power to choose the way we think. As Abraham Lincoln said, ?Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be?.