Can you Fake Happiness?

Another blogger I read has decided to be happy. She is sick and tired of feeling tired and frustrated and has just decided to stop. She is on a mission to be happy. She's only been doing it for a week, but so far its working for her. It got me to thinking -- can you just do that? Can you just change your attitude and do it.

I have a friend who is generally a glass-half-empty kind of gal, but married a guy who is seriously the MOST negative person I have ever met. If you said, "isn't it a beautiful day?", he would counter with, "but now we have to watch out for skin cancer" or "but all these flowers make my allergies hell". Once they were driving us to another friend's wedding. Our babysitter was late in arriving, so I called to see where she was. She was on her way, and apologized saying she thought she was supposed to arrive at 5:30 and not 5pm. When I relayed this to our friends, the husband says "she did NOT think that, she just lied to you". Now this was a woman who had been taking care of our kids for a long time, who we loved. He had never met her. But he just has that -- the world is out to get me -- kind of attitude. Makes me insane. And has, to a degree, made my friend a little more negative about life too.

Anyway, I thought this experiment was interesting. Instead of griping about the little things, just let them go and decide to be happy. Decide to have fun with the kids instead of cleaning the house, or nagging them to clean up. Decide to give attention to your husband, even if he is driving you crazy (not that you ever do that, honey!). I think she may have something here. Or will she then just be "acting" her life? I don't know. I lean towards thinking that this could work -- just decide to be happy. What do you think?