A while ago a friend of mine said to me, "I used to think that if only I could get rid of all my anxiety, anger, hopelessness and sadness I would be happy. I thought if I could minimise my misery - good feelings would come flooding in. How wrong I was. If sometimes I could manage it, I did not feel happy - just empty."

The fact is that in addition to the skill of minimising misery, he also needs to learn a completely different skill - that of positive psychology. This includes having more positive emotions, more engagement, more meaning, more accomplishment and better human relations. The science of positive psychology (lead by Professor Martin Seligman) is relatively recent but already backed up by robust evidence.