happy

I was walking home last week and I was feeling pretty great about myself. I had just finished a "working" coffee with friends, where we gossiped and made travel plans through semi-productivity. It was a fresh, sunny, satisfying autumn day and I found myself deliberately kicking up the leafs.

Recently, I had the dumbest meltdown ever. A brief loss of perspective led to a hissy fit in - of all places - the Apple store, where I was hoping to buy the new iPhone.

On almost everyone's wish list? More time for, well, everything. Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours, explains how we can be happier by paying closer attention to how we spend our time.

People who feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not; they even earn more money, sleep better, get more exercise and are less likely to get sick.

Do the mementos of relationships past make you more or less happy? A recent post over at Pop Candy - Cool stuff inherited after a breakup - got me thinking about this topic. The post was flippant and amusing; simply a list of the top five things left behind by the writer's ex-boyfriends: