Delight is the delicious taste we get when something good happens. Worries fade away, frustration evaporates, and anger disappears when a baby is safely born or a friend passes their exams, when a problem is solved or a conflict resolved. Delight opens the heart.

Delight can change our minds and change our lives. It is a tonic that relieves the pain of envy and shifts the blight of depression. It brings us closer to the people we love and eases the difficulties we have with those people who are further away from us.

It makes such good sense to practise the art of rejoicing that it is strange we often overlook it. Why is bad news sometimes more compelling than good news? Why are we tempted to dwell on what is going wrong rather than what is going right? One drags us down, the other lifts us up.

We have a choice about what to feed our heart and mind. If we can learn to dwell on positive stories and accomplishments we can quickly bring more happiness into the lives of ourselves and others.

"You will find truth more quickly through delight than gravity. Let out a little more string on your kite."

• Alan Cohen

"When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the 'newness', the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance."

• Thomas Merton

"Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can."

• Danny Kaye

"Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference."

• Jane Goodall

"Intelligence is nothing without delight."

• Paul Claudel