As the obituary writer in a spectacularly beautiful but often dangerous spit of land in Alaska, Lende knows something about last words and lives well lived. Now she's distilled what she's learned about how to live a more exhilarating and meaningful life into three words: find the good. It's that simple-- and that hard. Lende reminds us that we can choose to see any event as an opportunity to find the good. Heather Lende is the author of "If You Lived...

A simple shift in thinking can change everything you believe about your own happiness. By the time we become adults, most of us have joined the religion of suffering, which preaches that unless circumstances are controlled, life will be a mess. We compare ourselves to others and speculate about an impossible-to-know future, holding out hope for an improved life through getting ahead, fulfilling passion, or finding true love. But the idea that happiness...