How do you move from a life of endless problems to a life of endless possibilities? Learn to cultivate the four conditions of happiness: clear eyes, a quiet mind, a sense of beauty, and an open heart.

The best way to get started up this royal road to inner riches begins with a simple idea. Don’t try to be good. Just prefer the good; then, do the best you can to act the good. Want what is true in the moment more than you want the familiarity of false ideas that betray. And how do you make this choice?

Remember that the spiritually sleeping mind would rather have familiarity than freshness… which makes it incumbent upon you to be present to this pattern, and to choose in favor of what’s new. You have to want to be in the moment of the light of your understanding. When some dark thought or feeling comes calling, remember your wish to no longer give this darkness a home in your heart and mind. Just recognize that this new action needs to be done, not how it will be done. It is the work of the light, of truth, to shatter the illusion that any dark state has the right to rule over you

Guy Finley writes the "Letting Go" blog on Beliefnet.