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To find gratitude and generosity when you could reasonably find hurt and resentment will surprise you. It will be so surprising because you will see so much of the opposite: people who have much more than others yet who react with anger when one advantage is lost or with resentment when an added gift is denied.

One of the great issues in biology is the origin of altruism - of why you would do something for someone else that could hurt you - and Darwin posited that it might be rooted in maternal instinct, in sacrificing yourself for your children.

Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped.

As I get, I give. Giving as you get is critical. It has everything to do with being happy for yourself, and making others happy is the cause of making yourself happy, and it's the cycle of giving and getting.

It's also selfish because it makes you feel good when you help others. I've been helped by acts of kindness from strangers. That's why we're here, after all, to help others.

We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community.

What I've learned is there's a scientifically proven phenomenon that's attached to gratitude, and that if you consciously take note of what is good in your life, quantifiable benefits happen.

One thing that feeds into the way you experience the social world is your mood - and one thing that affects your mood is the weather.

The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.

Money can add very much to one's ability to lead a constructive life, not only pleasant for oneself, but, hopefully, beneficial to others.