Everyone wants to be happy. You see people who are smiling and laughing, and you want to be like them.【小题1】 However, there are also bad days. Here are three ways to make you happier every day.

Smile often. Research has shown that the facial expression you wear influences your state of mind.【小题2】 Wearing a pleasant expression for a long period of time will slowly improve your feelings and help you have a happier day.

【小题3】 The more you complain, the more annoyed(恼怒的) you become. If all you notice or talk about during the day are the things that annoy you, it is no surprise that you are unhappy. To truly increase your long-term happiness, don’t complain any longer.【小题4】

Practice thankfulness. Thankfulness has been shown to be the last ticket to a happy life. The more you practice thankfulness, the more you will find things to be grateful for in your life.【小题5】 Even something as simple as a safe place to sleep or food to eat is worth being thankful for because not everyone is fortunate enough to have those necessities.

About 150 years ago, a village church priest, Patric Bronte, in Yorkshire, England, had three lovely, intelligent daughters but his hopes fell entirely on the only male successor, Branwell, a youth with remarkable talent in both art and literature.

Branwell’s father and sisters saved their pennies to pack him off to London’s Royal Academy of Arts, but if art was his calling, he dialed a wrong number. Within weeks he ended up going back home, a penniless failure.

Hopes still high, the family landed Branwell a job as a private tutor, hoping this would free him to develop his literary skills and achieve the success and fame that he deserved. Failure again.

Still, the selfless sisters set aside their own goals, farming themselves out as teachers and governesses in support of their increasingly indebted brother, convinced the world must eventually recognize his genius. As failure multiplied, Branwell turned to alcohol, then opium, and eventually died as he had lived: a failure. So died hope in the one male — but what of the three sisters?

During Branwell’s last years, the girls published a book of poetry at their own expense (under a pen name, for fear of reviewers’ prejudice against females). Even Branwell might have laughed: they sold only two copies.

They didn’t give up. Instead, they continued in their spare time, late at night by candlelight, to pour out their contained emotion, writing of what they knew best, of women in conflict with their natural desires and social condition, in reality, less fiction than autobiography! And 19^th century literature was transformed by Anne’s Agnes Grey, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre.

But years of sacrifice for Branwell had eventually ruined their health. Emily took ill at her brother’s funeral and died within 3 months, aged 29; Anne died 5 months later, aged 30; Charlotte lived only to age 39. If only they had been highly thought of instead of sacrificed.

No one remembers Branwell’s name, much less of his art or literature, but the Bronte sisters’ tragically short lives teach us even more of life than literature.

I have learned something about myself since I moved from Long Island to Florida three years ago. Even though I own a home in Port St. Lucie just minutes from the ocean, every winter an uncontrollable urge(冲动) wells up to fly back to Long Island even as others make their way south. I guess I am a snowbird stuck in reverse(反向).

Dulled by Florida's mild winters, I willingly suffer the cold weather on Long Island, the place I called home for 65 years. I'm like a bird that has lost its sense of timing and direction, my wings moving against routine.

So what makes me fly against the habits of snowbirds? The answer has a lot to do with my unwillingness to give up the things that define(给...下定义) who I am. Once I hear that the temperature on Long Island has fallen into the range of 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, I begin to long for the sight and sound of a wood fire. I also long for the display of colours—first in the fall trees, and then in the lights around homes and at Rockefeller Center. Floridians decorate, too, but can't create the special feel of a New England winter. Moreover, when I return I can celebrate the holidays with people I haven't seen in months. What could be better than sitting with family and friends for a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, or watching neighbours' children excitedly open gifts on Christmas? Even the first snowfall seems special.

While these simple pleasures are not unique to Long Island, they are some of the reasons I comeback. Who says you can't go home? I know I will be ordering a ticket this very night and cured of homesick(思乡病) tomorrow.