Happiness. This is probably the most sought-after emotion in the world and yet somehow, despite our abundance of wealth, increase in health and freedom from tyrannical oppression it seems to have grown more elusive. We have confused our quest to find inner peace with our desires for success and financial gain. Again and again the world transmits a message that if you work really hard you will become really successful and from there happiness will be a by-product that just follows naturally. People in the rich industrialized countries are now wealthier than they have been at any time in our history and yet all the evidence points to the fact that we are now unhappier than we have ever been.

What can it be that we are getting wrong? Why is it that depression levels, even among adolescents, are skyrocketing? We are not the first people to go in search of the answers to this problem. It is an age-old dilemma that dates back thousands of years but which seems to be reaching a crisis level at the moment. The last 50 years have seen huge leaps forward in our knowledge of the workings of the human brain and the psychology associated with it. Science has already answered many of the questions we have in regard to happiness and as you delve deeper into this book you are going to learn that your happiness levels are not just something that happen to you or are the result of the circumstances in which you find yourself. You can develop your brain's receptiveness to happiness in much that same way as you are able to develop your physical stamina: through discipline and effort combined with some education as to how the mind works.