More happy thoughts....

I've done a lot of thinking and reading on this topic (and blogging too) since I've had the belief most of my life, that the most important endeavor of my life is to be happy. For the most part I've been successful. And I'm happy to report that my belief was shared by some guy named Socrates (and he was a pretty heavy thinker).
So here's some of what I believe...
Those who set out to seek happiness seldom find it. They do find momentary happiness in materialism, escapism, alcohol, drugs, sex to name a few. This is only temporary and fades pretty quick.
The ideal situation would be to be able to summon happiness without artificial substances and to be able to summon it at will. We don't need to be happy all of the time nor really do we want to. We need the contrast to appreciate the beauty of life. Sometimes we need to grieve or just be pissed off. When we're done with the anger, frustration or whatever wouldn't be great to say to yourself, 'ok, enough of that, now its time to happy.'
That would be great to think of happiness as a positive energy that you can bring to life and radiate at will. And for it not to be up to external factors to make you happy. Something you can summon at will!
So far I have discovered three techniques that work for me. The first is to write out a bunch of things that I feel grateful for. I've been doing this everyday for the past 6 weeks and sometimes more than once a day if I'm feeling a little down about something.....it works.
The second technique is to recall times when I felt really happy (don't worry I'm not going to share my personal stuff with you, some things are better left in the bedroom). The only problem with this technique is when you are feeling down it isn't really that easy to recall a moment of hillarity. So this works better if you record those really good moments by writing them down in a book or on your computer, so you can retrieve them on demand. Think of these as mood shifters. This also works very well.
The third method is explained by the science known as Neuro Linguistics Programming or NLP. It says that that physiology and your brain are connected. In other words if you act a certain way you start feeling that way. Normally when you are depressed or sad your shoulders slump and your eyes and head sag a bit. When you are happy you are more upright and energetic. So if you want to get happy act like you are happy. Have you seen the commercial for one of the lotto's where the person does their 'happy dance' because they won the lotto, yes, that's what I'm talking about. Change your physiology and do your happy dance and you will quckly start feeling better. And if you do it in public, well then you won't be the only one laughing.
If you have any other ideas that work for you to get you jiggy let me know?