Life isn’t always sweet. Sometimes, when I feel like the world is just too heavy, I look around and find people who continued to live fascinating and successful lives. How did their life become so wonderful? How come they still can manage to laugh and play despite a stressful life?

So, how does one become genuinely happy? First you have to love yourself. To love yourself means to accept that you are not a perfect being, but you must be able to find the courage to learn from your mistakes.

Genuine happiness also equates to contentment. When you are happy with the job you have, the way you look, your family, your friends, the place you live in, your car, and all the things you now have – truly, you know the answer to the question "how to be genuinely happy."

Life is finding out about right and wrong, trying and failing, wining and losing. These are things that happen as often as you inhale and exhale. Failure is a constant in everyone's life but this should not hinder us from becoming happy.

Every time you put any effort in improving your life - or someone else's life, you earn extra "joy points", whether it helping a friend, cleaning up your room, taking care of your sick dog, or just making sure that you stay in a positive mode.

Imagine life as a big score board. Every time you take a step forward, you make scoring points. Wouldn’t it be nice to look at that board at the end of each game and think to yourself "Wow! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot.", instead of looking at the blank board and think "Gosh, I didn’t even score today. I wish I had the guts to try".

Genuine happiness isn’t about driving the best car, nor getting the employee of the year award, or beating the sales quota. Sometimes, the most sought after prizes in life don't always go to the fastest, the strongest, the bravest or not even the best. So, how do you become genuinely happy? Every one has his own definition of ‘happiness’. Happiness for a writer may mean publishing as many best selling books as possible. Happiness for a baseball player may mean getting a home run. Happiness for a beggar may mean enough money for a meal. Happiness for a business man may mean monetary success.

So, really now, how do we become genuinely happy? Simple. You don’t have to have the best things in this world. Its about doing and making the best out of every single thing. When you find yourself smiling at your own mistake and telling yourself "Oh, I’ll do better next time", you carry with you the knowledge that you have the willpower and perseverance to make things happen. You possess a willingness to stand up again and try and that will make you a genuinely happy person.

When you learn to accept yourself and your own faults. you know that you have the capability to keep improving and being happy. When you know how to accept others, you will also be accepted. When you know how to spread love, you will receive love tenfolds back.

And then you ARE Genuinely happy!