12 Ways to be Happy

Received an email titled "12 Ways to be Happy". Read it and actually ponder on it.
Here are some of the contents:
1) Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things.
2) Make the best of your circumstances. No one has everything, and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears.
3) Don't take yourself too seriously.
4) You can't please everybody. Don;t let criticism worry you.
5) Don't let your neighbour set your standards. Be yourself.
6) Since hate poisons the soul, do not cherish jealousy. Avoid people who make you unhappy.
7) Don't spend your time brooding over sorrows or mistakes. Don't be one who never gets over things.
8) Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself.
9) Keep busy at something. A busy person never has time to be unhappy.
10) Do the things that you enjoy doing.
11) Have many interests. If you can't travel, read about new places.
12) Never borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than real ones.


How true are the contents? I think I'm guilty of some of it though. We are human beings anyway. At times seeing those that we hate happy and achieved something, we can't help feeling something...maybe jealous....and at times we tend to spend our time brooding over past sorrows or mistakes. But at the same time there are people who totally forgot about their past mistakes and tend to commit the same mistakes or sins again and again....when will it stop? I feel that no matter what, we tend to make ourselves unhappy at times.