Much of the credit goes to you, the readers, for your insightful responses to my musings. I've greatly enjoyed the feedback, the sharing of information and the fact that we continue to learn from each other.

As I've looked back over the subjects of this year's columns, I've run across the topics of commitment, habits, communication between men and women, gratitude, control, honesty, creativity, agreements, purpose, hurrying through life, replaying negative situations in our minds, competition, coaching, criticism, joy and ThanksLiving.

And I've also reflected on the title of the column, "Living Life Fully" - a reminder that this is not a dress rehearsal. Rather than just going through the motions, we can choose to experience life on a deeper level.

This brought to mind a segment I saw on the television show "20/20" about centenarians. They were studying common traits of those who were living quality lives beyond 100 years. My husband and I developed an acronym for those qualities so we could always remember them:

PALACE:

P - Purpose

A - Attitude

L - Loss

A - Active

C - Committed

E - Engaged

Many of these folks had outlived their siblings - and even their children. They had the fortitude not only to persevere, but to flourish.

I also was intrigued to learn this week that scientists have found we each have a "happiness set point," the genetic and learned tendency to remain at a certain level of happiness - similar to a thermostat setting on a furnace. Like a weight set point, which keeps the scale hovering around the same number, our happiness set point remains the same unless we make a concerted effort to change it, according to Marci Shimoff, author of "Happiness for No Reason."

Two of our greatest barriers to happiness - fear and anxiety - have been hardwired into us to ensure survival as a species. In today's world, however, that old wiring has become more harmful than helpful.

Consider these categories developed by Shimoff:

When we're happy for no reason, according to Shimoff, we bring happiness to our outer experiences, rather than trying to extract happiness from them. We don't need to manipulate the world around us to make ourselves happy. We live from happiness, rather than for happiness.

People with high happiness set points don't have special powers. They just have different habits. Psychologists say at least 90 percent of all behavior is habitual. So, to become happier, we need to look to our habits.

Some books and programs tell us we can simply decide to be happy. Just make up our minds to be happy, and we will be. That's too simplistic and unrealistic. All our habitual thoughts and behaviors in the past have created specific neural pathways in the wiring of our brains, like grooves in a record. When we think or behave a certain way over and over, the neural pathway is strengthened and the groove becomes deeper.

Unhappy people tend to have more negative neural pathways. That's why we can't ignore the realities of our brain's wiring and just decide to be happy. To raise our happiness set point, we have to create new grooves.

Scientists used to think that once a person reached adulthood, the brain was fairly well set in stone and there wasn't much we could do to change it. But new research says that when we think, feel and act in different ways, the brain changes and actually rewires itself.

Leading brain researcher Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin says, "Based on what we know of the plasticity of the brain, we can think of things like happiness and compassion as skills that are no different from learning to play a musical instrument or tennis ... it's possible to train our brains to be happy."

As Benjamin Franklin said, "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."

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I've been asked to put together a collection of my past columns. If you would be interested in this, please drop me a note or an e-mail; I'll keep you informed about this possibility. And a special note of thanks on this first anniversary to my editor, Rosalie Earle, the copy editors who guide me, and the Sunday Gazette-Mail for the opportunity to exercise my passion through this column. Here's to many more!

Linda Arnold is a certified wellness instructor and founder and chairwoman of The Arnold Agency, an integrated marketing communications firm in Charleston. Reader comments or questions may be mailed to Linda Arnold, The Arnold Agency, 117 Summers St., Charleston, WV 25301, or e-mail livinglifefu...@arnoldagency.com">livinglifefu...@arnoldagency.com.