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Sheriff's deputies showing up to evict you from your foreclosed home? You need the portable happiness generator.

There are a lot of unhappy people running around these days. The 21st century has started out rather unfortunately in a number of ways. It began with the whole Y2K computer scare, followed shortly after by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. Then, much of the world became entrenched in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where terrorism techniques have become more sophisticated and effective than ever before. Not to mention the global economic meltdown that's affected nearly every nation on the planet.

Yes, there are plenty of reasons for people to be unhappier than ever. However, people continue to crave happiness; luckily, we can actually make our own happiness when our lives and surroundings are short on it. By creating what University of California at Riverside psychology professor and happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky calls happiness strategies, we can instill happiness in ourselves [source: Hardy].

In the spirit of happiness, HowStuffWorks.com did some digging around and found five ways to drum up a little happiness of your own whenever and wherever you like.