One of the best hours in radio, anywhere, every week is Dennis Prager’s “Happiness Hour”, every Friday on Prager’s nationally-syndicated show.

The Hour has been a huge blessing for me in the past five years or so.  A key lesson for me has been the link between Prager’s lessons and the old Hungarian saying, “the best way to become wealthy is to appear as if you already are”.  You can change nouns almost at will, of course; it’s the best way to become healthy, in love with your partner or patient with your kids after a rough stretch, and of course happy as well.  Acting happy even if you aren’t is as good a path to becoming happy as there is. 

But that’s the easy lesson.

The harder one – and one Prager harps on heavily in The Hour – is “you have a duty to be happy”.  More directly, you have a duty not to inflict your unhappiness onto others.

So I had a really, really crappy morning, the kind that parents of teenagers should be able to recognize, if you catch my drift.  I was feeling pretty crummy when I made it to work.

I was standing in the elevator when one of my company’s mail-room girls – who happens to be “challenged” – spoke up with an ear to ear grin on my face.

“Great day, huh?”

“Sure”, I grunted, not really feeling it.

“Only two weeks until Christmas!”, she said with that glee that I remember my kids feeling years and years ago; the kind that’s contagious, that makes the holidays such a wonderful thing when you have little kids.

And I caught it.  I left the elevator feeling happy (happier, anyway), and – more importantly – realizing how much better things look now that I’m focused on not focusing on what a crappy start the day had.

Yeah.  It is two weeks until the holidays.  And the crappy stuff?  This too shall pass.