Over the past week, we have trampled almost every issue and beat the proverbial dead horse until there was nothing left. When I sat down to write this week’s column, I wondered what wouldn’t be controversial and incite verbal rioting and fill space with a positive message.

The answer was simple. Happy Thoughts. Before you roll your eyes and think this column is going to be bunnies and puppies, let me clarify.

Happy thoughts aren’t just thoughts of frivolous things that have nothing to do with war, discrimination and same-sex debates! Happy thoughts are anything that gives us a feeling of relaxation, rejuvenation or calm.

Let’s say a friend calls with “devastating news” that they’ve just broken up with someone. As their friend, you are concerned for them but the break up doesn’t mean quite the same thing to you.

To be encouraging, you try to bring out the positives of the situation. You’re attempting to change the person’s perceptions. Do you find that it is often impossible to change someone else’s feelings? Of course it is – but changing thought patterns is relatively easy if enough effort is expended.

To personalize Happy Thoughts, lets look at another situation. You wake up one morning to find it raining and “miserable.” You can chose to wallow in the misery you see or with a quick change of mental pace, think that with every rainy day, we have two that are sunny.

Other ways to have Happy Thoughts are to extend something to people around you. Compliment someone in your class. Stop yourself the next time you feel something mean about to come out of your mouth. Find five good things about your life and yourself every day that you can’t argue with.

On average, we think around 55,000 thoughts a day. Most deal with failure, fear and rejection in some way. How do you keep from stressing out?

The obvious answer is study for it, but think calming thoughts. Few things are permanent in this life. If you fail at something, most likely, you will get the chance to try again.

Albert Ellis wrote a book called “The Guide to Rational Thinking.” He says we can change our emotions by reordering how we perceive incidents choosing how we deal with them. This is the basis of the Happy Thoughts idea.

When your significant other breaks up with you, make a choice to not shoulder the burden or lay blame elsewhere, but simply see it as a path untaken for yourself and see where that path leads. When the car breaks down, see it as something other than a bother or something that just sucks. There is a silver lining in almost every cloud, you just have to be creative and sew it in there! You can live in a better world by changing your mindset, you just have to make the choice to do so.

Happy Thoughts are not magic but they can change your reality!