When we think about Abe Lincoln, we think about freedom --- the emancipation of people who were held as slaves at the time. The above quote doesn't seem at first glance to address freedom, but it really does. It's about freedom from circumstances. That is, we do not have to wait for the right combination of events to occur before we can be happy. We have some control from within. We have the resources to control our own internal environments.

I do have a little problem with the word "happy". To me feeling better about things doesn't necessarily mean feeling "happy". Trying to put arbitrary labels on how we feel is not the way to gain control. Actually quite the opposite. The labeling process is what makes us miserable in the first place.

Let's assume for a minute that President Lincoln was correct. We all have the freedom to feel better about things. O.K., why don't more people exercise this freedom?

The answer is that we're waiting for permission. We grow up in a society which hands down rules about how we express ourselves. Our feelings, to the extent that we convey them to others are forms of expression. They are subject to social approval or disapproval. We come to expect that we will feel a certain way in a given setting and may become confused and or concerned when we don't. Often, our truly closest friends are those with whom we are able to share feelings that are more commonly held by others as unacceptable.

What we don't fully realize, is that there is no straight-forward cause and effect relationship between events and feelings. There is only the illusion brought about by our expectations.

Social approval itself represents a common denominator as far as what people think will make them happy --- recognition, fame, popularity, status within the community, credit worthiness, affiliation etc., etc.. Sociologist, David Reisman, coined the phrase "other-directed" to describe this trait.

There's something else going on which is even more powerful in shaping our expectations about how we should feel --- the process of "internalization". We don't actually need others to tell us how to feel. By the time we become adults, we are carrying these "others" around with us. We have acquired roles in society which we take quite seriously. "I'm a parent". "I'm an American". "I'm a Christian". "I'm a Republican". "I'm a professional". All of the host of roles we could possibly adopt carry with them certain beliefs about how to behave and by default, how to feel about things. In addition to roles defined by our circumstances or training, there are also roles which are thought of as personality traits. "I'm an introvert". "I'm a clown". "I'm a Libra". "I'm a Schizophrenic".

We don't give ourselves permission to feel better about things because we're locked into our expectations about what to feel. We also have incorrect beliefs about how feelings work. But the freedom is potentially there. The technology to re-educate ourselves is available in many forms. "Honest Abe" wouldn't lie.