One effective way of destroying happiness is to look at something and focus on even the smallest fault. It’s like looking at the tiled（铺瓦的）ceiling and concentrating on the space where one tile is_____ .

Once I heard a bald（秃头的）man said，“Whenever I enter a room，_____ I see is hair.”Once you’ve_____ what your missing tile is，explore whether getting it will_____ make you happy. Then do one of the three things：get it，replace it with a different_____ ，or forget about it and_____ the tiles in your life that are not missing.

We all know people who have had a relatively easy life，yet are essentially unhappy_____ people who have suffered a great deal_____  remain happy.

The first_____ is gratitude（感激）.All happy people are ______ .Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to______ ，but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.

The second secret is______ that happiness is a by-product（副产品）of something else. The most obvious______ are the pursuit that gives our lives purpose-anything______ studying insects to playing baseball. The more passions we have，the more happiness we are likely to______ .

Finally，the belief that something lasting for a long time goes beyond us and that our______ has some larger meaning can help us to feel happier. We______ a spiritual faith， or a philosophy of life. Whatever your philosophy is， it should ______ this truth：If you choose to find the______ in every situation， you will be blessed；and if you choose to find the awful， you will be cursed. As with happiness itself， this is______ your decision to make.

   Society tells us that we should count our blessings, focus on all that we have and feel grateful for what we’ve been given. But there is nothing wrong with “healthy discontent”. In fact, healthy discontent is what motivates us to improve ourselves and our circumstances. Without this feeling, life’s easier to stand still.

I always have a certain level of discomfort. That discomfort drives me to work hard at my job. I don’t just want to remain where I am. Professionally, I want to keep getting better. Likewise, I always have a certain amount of discontent with my home. That drives me to always try to improve it by making it look better.

My feelings of discontent with my job and my home don’t mean that I don’t appreciate them. It’s an incredible blessing to be able to work and be paid for one’s efforts. Similarly, if you live in a safe place, with running water, heating, and air conditioning, you are incredibly fortunate. These are not the things to be taken for granted. However, we should be striving (力争) to improve.

If you happen to be good at playing the piano, you should work to continually improve your skills. The same holds true for our personal development. If you have areas in your personality that need improvement, you should work on them, too.

For instance, I can be very impatient. As a result, I work hard to try to conquer that flaw (缺点) by keeping my impatience to myself. When we feel discontent with ourselves, we have to be honest with ourselves.

It’s easy to make excuses for our bad behavior, but we need to face our discontent and say to ourselves, “I need to work on this.” This week, consider whether you have healthy discontent in your life. Have you become so settled in your life that you don’t see regular improvement?

Do you have a character flaw that you wish you didn’t have? Don’t ignore these things. Instead, take steps to address your areas of discontent and keep improving your life every day. No matter how great we think things are going, there’s always room for improvement.