HOLIDAY HAPPINESS
How to be happier during the holidays?  Feel like you're missing out?  A good piece here---for example:
"The scenario: “My neighbor throws a great New Year’s bash every year, and it’s a great time to catch up with old friends I might not have seen for months. But this year I’m feeling unsure about my life and job, so I don’t really want to share what’s new with me. And when I hear about good things happening to others (so-and-so got engaged or a big raise at work), I beat myself up.  How do I stop feeling this way?”

The solution: It's natural to reflect on your own accomplishments when you hear about others' success. But these news flashes can also spur you to reassess the choices you have in your life. Dr. Birndorf offers this example: “Recently, one of my patients found out about a friend's promotion, then came to me wondering how she could get ahead at work; she then asked her boss for more responsibility.” In other words, the best way to not focus on other people's achievements is to concentrate on things that make you happy.

You don't have to tackle everything at once. Start with whatever feels most unsatisfying: If you worry you're trapped in a dead-end job, ask yourself what you're getting out of the position that keeps you stuck. Once you figure out what fulfills you, you'll be less apt to criticize yourself when friends make strides—because you'll be making your own."

And beyond that, we need to realize...we always think others have perfect lives, or relationships, or holidays...but they don't.  Nobody is perfect; nobody's life is perfect.  Too often we walk along in life and we assume that everybody else is cool, and with it, and knows exactly what they're doing and what's going on...except us.  But then we talk to others and we realize--that ain't so. 

We can always improve, and we should strive to improve.  But you're not terrible, and everybody else isn't perfect.  Once we realize that....well, hmmm.  The perspective changes.  Try it!

"Take the first step in faith.  You don't have to see the whole
staircase, just take the first step." -Martin Luther King, Jr.