Can you learn to be happy?

I've been reading this book called Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D. It's sort of a self-help book using the principles of positive psychology along with scientific studies and spiritual enlightenment. He gives you a basic set of principles you can apply to your daily life in order for one to feel more fulfilled and connected.

In the book, he includes what he calls "Time Ins" as opposed to "Time Outs" in which you stop and take time to reflect on what you read and to look inside yourself answering the questions or performing the exercises he provides. I'm going to use my blog as a way to log these Time Ins and add or reference them later.

I've arrived at my first Time In in the book which reads... "Reflect on a couple of personal experiences where reaching a certain milestone did not bring you the emotional payoff you expected." The lead-in to this exercise was a story about how he had desired to win the Israeli national squash championship and how he thought it would alleviate an emptiness he had felt. At first he was so happy and fulfilled that he had won the title but shortly thereafter was very down and his emptiness returned.

I could answer this in a few different ways. The first thing that comes to mind is that while I do have things that I look forward to that I think will make me happy, I don't think they will make me happy indefinitely. In other words, I know it is a temporary fulfillment and I don't have expectations that it will make me happy forever. Specifically as an example, when I was younger I would look forward to going to stay with my cousins at their house. I was so happy to be able to go and I would have a lot of fun. But when I had to go home I would feel so down. Now that I am older and more mature, the let downs I feel after a happy moment in my life doesn't seem to be as severe. However, I have thought about this particular subject on several occasions and I do know that instead of allowing my time leading up to my moment to be happy and exciting, I really need to savor in the moment more and allow myself to look back on these times and reminisce and savor it all over again. Another example and much more complex is what I happen to be going through at this time in my life. I have left a broken marriage and while I have the world in the palm of my hands, I feel so down and empty. Which is why I'm reading this book. :)