Nice writing

Howdy!

Started my day off with a smile... From today's New York Times.

Our ability to spin gold from the dross of our experience means that we often find ourselves flourishing in circumstances we once dreaded. We fear divorces, natural disasters and financial hardships until they happen, at which point we recognize them as opportunities to reinvent ourselves, to bond with our neighbors and to transcend the spiritual poverty of material excess. When the going gets tough, the mind gets going on a hunt for silver linings, and most linings are sufficiently variegated to reward the mind's quest.

and

Many of the heroes and redeemers we most admire were unhappy people who found it impossible to change how they felt about the world - which left them no choice but to change the world itself.

Written by Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, is the author of the forthcoming "Stumbling on Happiness" and published on the Op-Ed page, today.