2018 Year in Review

2018 was year 2 of the “Resistance”. Although the country’s reputation has fallen in regard globally, and although much of the rest of the country will probably suffer due to the current president’s policies, we in California have largely been unaffected. I have done my part fighting for political causes that I believe in and fighting the current administration. I have donated to the ACLU this past year, as well as Planned Parenthood, and the Democratic Redistricting Committee (the group that works to reverse gerrymandering in Republicans' favor). Following the Kavanaugh hearings, I also gave money to several Democratic senators whose performances during the hearings I admired, as well as donating money to whichever candidate will eventually run against Maine Senator Susan Collins. During the midterms, I gave money to several promising candidates, including Stacy Abrams, who ran for governor in Georgia, but unfortunately lost. Whether she lost fairly or not, is unclear. The candidate she ran against was also the official overseeing the election - which is a huge conflict of interest. And also there were patently obvious attempts to restrict the vote in that state. (By the way, I am veering off from my former stance to stay away from politics  because I think we are at an exceptionally bad moment in history, that I think that I stand on the right side of history, and for me not to have a firm, public stance would be cowardly and unprincipled.)

Work-wise, it was a bit tough this year, but extremely rewarding in terms of the things that I was able to accomplish. On the negative side, I broke down a couple of times. The first time, I got responsibility taken away from me. That didn’t offend me. I think my manager decided to unload me because I truly was overwhelmed, and he and I realized I didn’t do well in customer-facing roles. At any rate, I was OK with having responsibilities off-loaded from me, because that allowed me to focus on one of the most challenging work assignments I’ve ever had. That assignment was unique in having tight size constraints, but huge strength requirements. I literally lost blood, sweat and tears designing this thing. Every time I tested a new round of prototypes, my nerves were wracked. If my test results were poor, it could ruin my day and leave me in a death spiral of ruminative thinking. But in retrospect, the fear that I felt was not due to a loss of faith in my own ability (I knew that I would eventually succeed), but because I feared I would take longer than expected and lose my managers’ faith in me. The fact that I eventually succeeded makes this a definite feel-good story to refer back to the next time I feel fear of failure, which is inevitable in this line if work. 

A couple of other standout moments in a largely uneventful year: (1) we vacationed in French Polynesia, where we did some scuba diving in Rangiroa, and had a great experience, even though we didn’t stay in an overwater bungalow. I will have some vacation video to post shortly.

(2) I also bought a Tesla Model 3, and counter to what I thought would happen, I actually love the car. Having only driven it a short time, I think I love the car even more than I loved my Mini Cooper convertible. I even named the car, “Toothless” after the dragon in "How to Train Your Dragon". if you compare the two, you can definitely see the resemblance. Also, they are both very cute, yet powerful.

Black Tesla Model 3

Toothless the Dragon

I hope that things will be as good and as uneventful in the year to come as 2018 was. Of course, me being me, I have a lengthy list of things I want to achieve and work on. It’s too lengthy to detail here, but generally, I want to work on not sweating the small stuff, particularly when it comes to my coworkers, even when they are trying my last nerve. And also, I want to work on being more vulnerable, but only around people who’ve earned my trust.

NON-travel Bucket List - Very Achievable

I just read a New York Times article about how you should inform your doctor about your bucket list so that they can appropriately prescribe treatment. In the article, there was a patient with terminal cancer that the doctor was treating, whose dream it was to vacation in Maui, but his cancer treatments would have probably kept him from this lifetime goal. Once he started chemotherapy, he would not have had the energy to board a plane, let alone vacation in Hawaii. And the likelihood of him recovering after the treatment was low. So his doctor recommended that he take his trip to Maui, and begin treatments when he came back. This got me to thinking what my bucket list should be. I hope to die with few regrets, at least from an experiential standpoint. I’ve written about travel-related goals before, and I have also written about “dream big” goals, before as well. Both of these types of goals are worthwhile, however, I just haven’t been excited about traveling, or dreaming big lately. So here, I’m going to list something I haven’t before — goals that are NOT travel-related, and that are VERY achievable. Some of these goals are intellectual in nature, and others are simply food related. 

1. Grow another vegetable garden. In particular I would like to cultivate fresh herbs (such as thyme, rosemary, basil), and collard greens and kale. Since moving into our condominium, we haven’t been able to do this.
2. Own a statement purse. I’ve owned several beautiful brand name purses in the past but nothing as luxurious and frivolous as Dior, Saint Laurent or Celine.
3. Go to a Silent Meditation retreat.  As soon as I wrote this goal down, I applied to attend a silent meditation retreat, putting a deposit down and everything. I hope I get selected. So excited!!! 
4. Finish writing my book (and start another). I vowed to begin working on my unfinished novel this weekend, but got diverted by writing this blog post instead.
5. Listen to good speakers and learn audiophile terminology. 
6. Receive Rolfing 10-part Structural Integration massage treatment. As soon as I wrote this goal down, I contacted a well-reviewed Rolfer in my area. 
7. Learn facial exercises for improving my facial appearance. Another NYT article was written about this. A study showed that facial exercises subtract years off your face. 
8. Make more clothes. I just bought some scrap Marimekko material that should make a nice top. 
9. Take a self-defense class, such as Krav Maga.
10. Learn how to play guitar.
11. Be a part of a startup from its inception. So far, I’ve only been employee #13.
12. Take a massage class.
13. Take a philosophy class
14. Eat an omakase meal at a sushi bar
15. Learn rudimentary Mandarin
16. Learn rudimentary Cantonese
17. Eat at a lobster boil

So far, just clarifying my goals has already gotten me on my way with at least two of the above goals. I have put an appointment down for a Silent Meditation retreat, and I’ve contacted someone to start my Rolfing treatment. 

“Why We Sleep”

I’ve been trying to find more purpose behind reading books. If I forget what I’ve read, why bother reading anything at all? Of course I love to read. And that should be reason enough to do it. But I’d like to believe that I’m improving myself through reading, whether by learning something new, or just to be an educated, well-read member of society. This is why I vow to write a brief review for every book that I read. The effort it takes to summarize a book consolidates my learnings, and also, when I do forget what I’ve read (why deny the inevitable?), I can review what I learned.

This review is part of my effort to write down a few words for every book that I read.



I was inspired to read, “Why We Sleep - Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams”, after listening to neuroscientist and Berkeley professor, Matthew Walker speak on NPR’s “Fresh Air”. I have always known what a balm sleeping was for illness, and I have always had a basic appreciation for how it healed the body after exercise. What intrigued me, however, was his assertion that sleep is also actually good for our mental health, and emotional regulation.

Have you ever gone to bed, only to wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, worrying about the past day’s events? I have a confession: I am sometimes kept up at night by worry. By morning’s time, however, my anxiety usually is reduced, or completely gone. As a result, I have taken the motto, “sleep on it”, to heart. For me, this motto means that my problems are never truly as bad as they seem at night.

I never came across a good explanation behind my experience until I read Walker’s book. According to Walker, sleep is not only great for your body and other things, but it is also a PAINKILLER FOR YOUR EMOTIONS!!! It is REM dreaming in particular that helps. According to Walker, we often dream about things that have emotional relevance to whatever problems we are undergoing at the moment. (We know this because the emotional parts of our brains fire during REM sleep, and because we ask sleep subjects what they dream about.) This is not terribly surprising. What is unusual is that this occurs while there is a complete absence of noradrenaline in our brains. Noradrenaline is a stress chemical that is normally present. In fact, the only time it is absent is during REM sleep. The heart of Walker’s thesis is this: the act of replaying our emotions in dream form, while no noradrenaline is present, is what anesthetizes us against the pain of our past:

“Is the REM-sleep dreaming state a perfectly designed nocturnal soothing balm—one that removes the emotional sharp edges of our daily lives? It seemed so from everything neurobiology and neurophysiology was telling us (me). If so, we should awake feeling better about distressing events of the day(s) prior.”

There is evidence to suggest he might be right. Sleep studies have shown that subjects who were introduced to traumatic photos experience less emotional charge after sleeping than subjects who were not given a sleep opportunity.

Another data point supporting his thesis is PTSD patients. There is a segment of society for whom sleep does not lessen emotional trauma, for whom time does not heal wounds. This group of people are veterans suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). These people relive emotionally traumatic events as though they had happened yesterday without the lessening of pain we normal people experience through time. It is well known that PTSD patients have disrupted REM sleep. Even more unusually, these people exhibit elevated levels of noradrenaline in their brains during REM sleep, unlike regular people.

The author was pivotal in pioneering a method for treating these veterans by introducing a medicine that reduces their noradrenaline levels while they dreamt. Veterans who underwent this treatment began to have less traumatic dreams, and soon their PTSD symptoms lessened as well. This novel treatment for PTSD patients lends credence to the author’s theory that lowered noradrenaline levels during REM sleep is what helps anesthetize all of us against emotional pain in our lives.


What I found equally revelatory about this book, beyond how sleep helps our emotional well-being, was finding out the biological basis behind each person's chronotype, and why it cannot be changed. A chronotype, in case you did’t know, is what time you prefer to go to sleep, and what time you prefer to wake up each day. A morning person, or a “lark” (as sleep enthusiasts call them), will go to bed early, and who will rise at ungodly times in the morning. Whereas a night person, or an “owl”, will tend to stay active way into the night, and prefer to wake up later. It used to be that night owls were considered lazy and were forced to abide by early riser's schedules. If chronotypes did not have a biological basis, then why is it that sleep preferences change as we age across large swaths of the population? Time and time again, studies have shown that people will tend to late-shift their sleep patterns during adolescence, and early-shift their sleep patterns when they hit retirement age.

Contrary to many’s opinions, and contrary to our lark-favoring society, one’s chronotype cannot be changed, no matter how much willpower you have. Our chronotype is governed by a small part of our brain called the “suprachriasmatic nucleus”. Cued by external signals like the sun, it pumps out a continuous stream of the hormone, melatonin on an approximately 24 hour cycle. A build up of melatonin is what triggers our sleepiness. During sleep, melatonin drops from the system, and the cycle can then begin anew each day. A lark will have an earlier melatonin infusion with respect to the sun than an owl. Because our melatonin production (which cues our sleepiness), is cued by things out of our control like the orbiting of our sun, our specific chronotype cannot be changed.

Why your chronotype is important is because our society is geared towards morning people, which is hugely detrimental to late risers like myself, who cannot adjust their chronotype, and hence suffer the mental and physical consequences as a result. Naturally, if you are an owl like myself, and was forced to wake up too early, this would not only reduce the total amount of sleep I would have, but also would reduce the very important REM sleep that I would be getting in the morning. We get more NREM sleep early in the night, and we get more REM sleep in the morning. REM sleep, as previously stated is super-important to emotional health, but is also supremely important to our social intelligence, and creativity, among other things. By forcing me into a morning person’s schedule, you might very well be making me more depressed, hindering my ability to read social cues, and preventing me from thinking innovatively — all detrimental to living well.

This book has hence made me particularly annoyed at those who glamorize sleeping as little as possible. I have coworkers who profess to having less than 4 hours of sleep a night. I can tell they are sleep deprived from their performances. I get equally angry at institutions like grade schools, which force their students to wake up too early in the morning, which we know is so important to our emotional health, all while their brains are still developing.

We now know much more about “Why We Sleep” than we used to. Hopefully, more people will prioritize their sleep more. It would benefit not only their mental cognition, but also their emotional health.

What to do After a Minor Setback at Work

Have you ever had one of those days when your entire day’s work was wasted? That’s just what happened to me today. This is not so bad in and of itself. However, I’m under a great deal of pressure from the boss right now (I actually prompted myself to work the entire past weekend after my weekly one-on-one with him!) What’s worse, I misrepresented my work to others and just today found out that my stated progress was way over-exaggerated. Anyways, I feel like I’m in a pressure cooker to make up for my lost time. I would love to get my work to a point where I can truly state I’ve made the progress I had previously stated. So, I started thinking of ways that I can quickly recover so that I can start afresh. Here is my list for what to do after a minor setback at work:

1. Have a glass of wine. Ha ha, I’m not kidding. First thing I did when I got home was pour myself some Cabernet. 
2. Complain. To the husband that I had a bad day, and demand a hug.
3. Eat a healthy meal. I realize this is not always going to happen. It was just fortuitous that I came home to a wonderful wild King Salmon meal from my husband. I suppose some hot soup would have done the trick as well.
4. Take a hot shower. Now that I’ve cleaned off the day’s grime, I can think afresh.
5. Acknowledge the good that came out of my day. For instance, even though I made 0% progress to my end goal, I did end up learning a few things that will eventually get me there. 
6. Prepare myself to ask for help. My weakness is asking not asking for enough help, so I’ve steeled myself to be humble and actually ask for some. Tomorrow, I’m going to ask a junior engineer to help me with one of the line items I learned about in bullet above #5. I’m also going to ask the resident expert for some advice.
7. Lay my worries to bed. Write down my learnings and my To Do’s and then forget about it. 
8. Do something relaxing like reading or writing. Writing this blog post, for instance, has helped me!

How to Destress

When I start to get an involuntary twitch in my face, I know that I am overly stressed, and I need to separate myself as far from the human race as possible.  In the past couple of weeks, my facial tic has started to recur, even though I haven't had it in a couple of years.  I can't quite place what is happening in my life to cause this.  Sure, I am dealing with difficult people at work; there is someone very angry and toxic that I am currently dealing with. Just having my cube sit kitty-corner from his has been stressful. All day, I listen to him complain, hit his keyboard in frustration, and deride everything and everyone.  I honestly don't know how some of the other people around me can stand him.  What's worse, he's in charge of fixturing one of my mechanical designs and can't seem to make it work properly.  Therefore, he blames my design instead of looking at his own work to fix the issue.  Even the most senior people make suggestions, and he refuses to follow through on those suggestions.  Whenever I try and make a suggestion, he rolls his eyes at me and looks at me like I'm the dumbest person on earth.

I also have a small elderly parent issue that is contributing to my anxiety. Sure, I don't have to be financially responsible over my parent or be a care-taker.  But I do have to be emotionally supportive as she goes through double hip-replacement surgery. And then, there's an underlying financial problem that my parent is having in her semi-retirement, which shouldn't ever happen when you are about to retire. It's a lot for my delicate nerves to handle. And I actually got into a public screaming match during this time that I should never have undergone had I been more mentally stable.  

We are also working on a bathroom and kitchen renovation at the same time. Yesterday, I spent a good 3-4 hours trying to cut kitchen cabinet doors on a very intimidating CNC router on a very expensive $300 piece of hardwood.  Unfortunately, this very dangerous and scary piece of equipment broke, and had to be taken down for a few days for repairs.  Thank goodness the wood is still intact. But it was enough to ruin a few hours of my day.  Bless Mark, my husband, for sitting very patiently next to me this entire time.

Anyways, I am dedicating my day off to relax as much as possible.  I am on the look out for ideas for how to de-stress beyond the normal: "get a pedicure" solutions.  Here are some ideas I might want to try to help me recover from eye-twitch inducing stress.

1. Eat lots of ice cream, buffalo wings, whatever comfort food you can think of.

2. Watch a fashion documentary in bed, preferably with the lights off -- Yesterday, I rented "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's" and watched it in bed in the dark on my iPad.  I felt sort of like in a womb while watching it.

3. Read self-help books and articles.  If you haven't heard of Martha Beck, you should totally look her up. She's a Harvard trained life-coach and is also a regular columnist in Oprah magazine. Not only is she sharp, but she is super insightful, and funny to boot. Also, I enjoy her spiritual almost "magical" beliefs about how life works.  I am such a sucker for her form of new age spirituality!  

4. Get away from the TV-blaring husband.  I have found out that I really need silence sometimes to get any inner calm.  Even if daily meditation practice is beyond my reach at times, just being able to sit and read in silence can really do my frazzled brain some good. Reminder to self: must get some Bluetooth enabled noise-cancelling head phones.

5. Eat lots of kale and spinach. This is in direct conflict with item #1 above, but apparently these veggies contains folate, which is good for cognitive repair.  

6. Roll on a foam roller, or invert.  Unlike yoga, these are almost effort free ways to work out knots and stretch. To passively invert, I like to sit on our sofa with my feet up, and my head and arms hanging over the edge of the seat. This backwards bend is pretty intense, the subsequent neck cracking that I get from this inversion is delicious.  

Anyways, I'm still thinking of more creative ways to decompress.  Surely writing this blog post has been one great way to de-stress.

How Self-Compassionate are you?

I have been reading a lot about self-compassion lately.  In this competitive world, it pays to love oneself. We have too much criticism and stress leveled at ourselves from external factors to NOT be compassionate with ourselves.  I found this self-compassion quiz that I took to score myself in self-compassion.

Below are my own scores for self-compassion on a scale of 1 to 5.  At my score of 2.01, I am considered to be low in self-compassion. High scores in self-judgement, isolation and over-identification contribute to my low score.  It's obvious what self-judgement means. I am pretty certain what "isolation" means in context of this self-compassion test - it means how alone one feels in their own suffering.  But I am not sure of what over-identification means. Perhaps it means how correlated one's sense of self is with one's failings.

Self-kindness: 1.8

Self-judgement: 4.0

Common humanity: 1.5

Isolation: 4.0

Mindfulness: 3.25

Overidentification: 3.5

Overall score: 2.01

I also found this self-compassion exercise on the same website where I found the quiz.  Here are my responses to its' questions:

What types of things do you typically judge and criticize yourself for (appearance, career, relationships, parenting, etc.)?

I usually judge myself for my career. I always feel like I am so old, yet not very far in my career. I haven't climbed the corporate ladder very far, despite being intelligent, and hardworking. Sometimes, I feel insecure about not getting enough accomplished, and I tell myself that I am lazy, or lacking in common sense or smarts. Sometimes, I feel critical of myself for saying the wrong thing or having poor social skills.  I suppose that other people criticize themselves for other things, like their appearance, or their parenting.  I don't usually feel this way and even think that appearance concerns are rather superficial. The fact that I can trivialize other peoples' insecurities puts my own insecurities in perspective. Perhaps my insecurities are shallow and inconsequential, or at least smaller than I think they are.

What type of language do you use with yourself when you notice some flaw or make a mistake (do you insult yourself, or do you take a more kind and understanding tone)?

I tend to think that I am all alone in being the failure that I am. I tend to tell myself that everyone else is so perfect, and are so much more successful than I am. I tend to ask why I am always the victim of hardship, and why does this always have to happen to me. The tone of voice that I use with myself is frustration, disappointment and disgust with myself. I want to ask myself: "why can't you be better? Why am I such a loser?"

When you are being highly self-critical, how does this make you feel inside?

Obviously, I feel terrible. I get a knot in my abdomen, and I feel like my legs and arms are numb. I feel depressed, and I can't sleep or eat. I can't appreciate the beauty that I see, or the flavor of the food that I eat. Being self-critical makes me feel sad, depressed, hopeless. I feel so hopeless sometimes that I don't see a point in living.

When you notice something about yourself you don’t like, do you tend to feel cut off from others, or do you feel connected with your fellow humans who are also imperfect?

I tend to feel very isolated from others. I tend to think that everyone else is perfect and have never suffered as I have. I tend to feel more alone and uniquely a failure in whatever I am suffering at that moment.

What are the consequences of being so hard on yourself? Does it make you more motivated and happy, or discouraged and depressed?

I tend to feel discouraged and unmotivated. It is easy to imagine, that I might be more effective at turning things around had I been less hard on myself.

How do you think you would feel if you could truly love and accept yourself exactly as you are? Does this possibility scare you, give you hope, or both?

I think it would feel absolutely liberating to truly love myself as I am. It gives me hope. I think it would be easy, too! I just need to remind myself when I am down on myself to love myself no matter what, and to be kind to myself. I think the next time I am depressed or down on myself, it would be good to remind that the core of my being is not reflected by the sum of my accomplishments, but is deeper than that and is rather disembodied from my accomplishments, appearance, even my personality, likes and dislikes..

How do you treat yourself when you run into challenges in your life? Do you tend to ignore the fact that you’re suffering and focus exclusively on fixing the problem, or do you stop to give yourself care and comfort? 

When I am confronted with life's difficulties, I tend to be kind to myself. I get hugs from my husband, I take naps, and read. I do things that I know will help me feel better about myself, like exercise, cooking, or housework, and avoid things that I know will make me feel terrible: like video games, or something indulgent like shopping. But I do also try to solve my problems.  I usually have a plan of action in a few days.

Do you tend to get carried away by the drama of the situation, so that you make a bigger deal out of it than you need to, or do you tend to keep things in balanced perspective?

I try to keep a balanced perspective. But I also tend to see the worst. I know that my tendency to see the worst will not help me because we tend to manifest what we expect in our heads. I try to think that my suffering is insignificant compared to what is happening in the country, in the world - that the universe is so much bigger than my own woes..

Do you tend to feel cut off from others when things go wrong, with the irrational feeling that everyone else is having a better time of it then you, or do you get in touch with the fact that all humans experience hardship in their lives?

When I suffer, I get the feeling that everyone else is far more successful, and happier than I am. As I want to become more self-compassionate, I need to remind mself that all human beings have hardship in their lives. Any watcher of TV will see every day people suffering in far more dramatic ways than I am. Take for example any competition reality TV show like "America's Top Model" or "So You Think You Can Dance" and you will see all sorts of suffering from failure.

2013 Resolutions

1) Stability, stability, stability.

This past year has been one of the worst years of my life. As the new year begins, I look back on the grief and trauma I've experienced in the past year, and I feel sad. I look towards the new year, and sadly, I don't feel entirely hopeful. I feel even a little fearful of what grief my mind has convinced awaits me .

I would never think I would say this, but all I really want this year is stability. I don't want anything to happen to me. I just want to be tender with myself. I don't want to stand out, I just want to blend in and not make a fool of myself.

A hobbit hole is where I'd like to stay for the rest of the year

2) Make physical health a priority, especially to counter aging.

While training for my backpacking trip through Yosemite, I gained about 10 lbs, and couldn't fit into even my newest pair of jeans. I am going to take time out of my day to work out, even if it means a 2 hour lunch once a week.

3) Make more financial investments

Instead of just saying, be better with finances like I usually do every year, I am going to try and be more specific. It's time to begin nurturing my stock investments with more seriousness. The short term goal for these investments would be to finance a new kitchen renovation, (see below). The longer term goal for these investments would be to finance a new home (see below).

New Modern Kitchen

New Modern Home

4) Cultivate objectivity

I've been told that I tend to see things in black or white. I've not been able to recognize this in myself all the time, but this is what I have been told. I recently spent a significant portion of time with someone, however, who saw things very black or white, and it dawned on me what my own black and white thinking was like, and the harm it was doing to me, as well as those around me. Everything that we saw on TV with this person brought out a judgement, usually negative. Watching TV brought out a never-ending monologue of extreme opinions on all matters. For example, the recent rape case in India brought on a diatribe on all Indian people. Not only was her over-generalization unjust, but it was just a real grind to have to listen to. Not only can black and white thinking be directed towards others, it can often times be directed to oneself. For example:

If things aren't "perfect," then they must be "horrible." If your child isn't "brilliant" then he must be "stupid." If you're not "fascinating" then you must be "boring."  

This is the type of thinking that I tend to gravitate towards, and I can see how exhausting and how hurtful to myself this can be. So this year, I want to recognize my tendency to generalize things as either good or bad, black or white, and begin to see things as they are.

Simple ways to become instantly happier

Once again, deadlines loom on the home front, and at work.  Once again, I have a million and one things to blog about rather than tackling these more important tasks:  One of the things on my mind these days are things that make me happy.  There
things that give me lasting happiness, and there are things that are like a quick shot in the arm.

Here are some of the things that are like a quick shot in the arm:
(1) A fresh coat of lipstick.  This is spoken from someone, who until very recently, hadn't worn a smidgen of makeup in her life.  But in my 30s I have discovered the joy of smearing on a coat of lipstick or lip gloss or two.
(2) Appreciate a friend out loud when you genuinely mean it. There is nothing that makes me more happy than paying a compliment or showing genuine thanks.  But be aware: paying a cheap compliment that you don't mean can have the opposite effect.
(3) Being out in the sun, on a really nice day. Like today, at this very moment, writing this blog in the dappled shade of an outdoor cafe.
(4) Wear a cute outfit and rock it all day.
(5) Laughing really loudly. It's so euphoric.
(6) Do not underestimate the power of skin moisturizer to keep you feeling soft and pampered all day.  This is from someone who has alligator skin, and for whom putting on moisturizer is like an epiphany.
(7) Relaxed and pleasant conversation over a meal. I hardly ever turn down an opportunity to go out for lunch  to have a nice discussion, even with stressful work looming.
(8) Eating food when hungry. Not to be underestimated.
(9) Drinking coffee. Caffeine makes me feel smarter, and more engaged in life.


And here are some deeper ways to be happier for longer periods of time:

(1) Bearing yourself gracefully and taking the high road in difficult situations.
(2) In the same sense as the previous, forgiving a friend with whom you've had a tiff. Often times, when you can't stand someone, you're looking at yourself in the mirror, and there is something that bothers you about yourself. If you can recognize that, and forgive yourself and the other person, it's like a huge load has lifted off my shoulders.  This has happened to me several times. Life is too short to bear a grudge or to hate people for a long period of time. Turn it around as quickly as possible, and you will be incredibly proud of yourself.
(3) Loving people deeply. You don't need to be family. You don't even need to know the people very well, or have had them in your lives for a long time.  But recognize that you can instantly love people and care for them.
(4) Take a class on happiness. Sometimes it's not enough to bumble around on one's own, figuring out what works and what doesn't work in this game of life.  Sometimes, it is necessary to take a class. For example I'm still reaping the benefits of what I learned in my Mindfulness Meditation retreat that I took at the Esalen institute a few years ago.  I'm still grokking how it feels to practice equanimity, and what it means to cultivate "loving-kindness" (metta bhavana). You can read more about my mindfulness retreat here.
(5) Risk and constantly face your fears. One of the main things I learned with my life coach was the concept of "being comfortable with being uncomfortable". The key is to to risk feeling uncomfortable many days of the week, and to risk so much, that you feel like you could die, once a week. I am following this, and this has been extremely rewarding to my life. I never thought I was a coward, but it is good to be reminded of when one is in a rut.