You've had a rough day.  Your tire blew out, causing you to arrive two hours late to work. To make matters worse, your boss gives you an earful when you walk through the door, after which you realize you left your credit card at the one-hour-away car shop while waiting for your vehicle to be serviced.  No sooner do you grab your phone in a huff to call the shop and see if anyone can track it down than your credit card company is calling you to verify if you made $1,250 in purchases at Saks Fifth Avenue.  We've each had some variation of the crappy day outlined above. And our only consolation is often the thought of going home to someone -- anyone -- who can cheer us up a little. Maybe it's our partner, roommate, or neighbor.  But maybe you've begun to notice a pattern of seeming indifferent to your distress. You always hope this time will be different -- that this individual will be there to listen, to say they know what you're going through. Unfortunately, though, ...

Chances are there has been someone in your life whom you called a friend -- only to realize they were anything but. It can be soul-sucking when someone in whom we've invested a great deal of time, energy, and -- more importantly, trust -- lets us down. But all it shows is that no matter how well we think we know someone -- no matter how strongly we believe we have a firm sense of their true character and motivations -- they can deceive us at any point in time. Here are three signs someone is only pretending to be your friend: 1. They talk behind your back. They're two-faced, saying good things about you when in your presence but doing the exact opposite when you're not around. This signals that they not only disvalue your trust, but also your loyalty. 2. They only seem to surface when they need you.  If you get a call or text from this individual, they need money, a cable jump, or some other favor. Being the good friend that you are, you're always happy ...

They say happiness is entirely subjective in that what makes one person happy might not have the same effect on someone else. Interestingly, not only is listening to sad music very common, but it has been linked with increased happiness around the world. In a study that looked at nearly 800 people on the eastern and western hemispheres, researchers discovered that listening to sad music generated beneficial emotional effects like regulating negative emotion and mood as well as consolation. Put simply, these findings have me baffled, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. When I want to get in a good mood, I listen to upbeat, uplifting music. Such songs include "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake, and "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina & The Waves. That sad music can make someone more merry seems counter-intuitive. Nothing depresses me more than listening to songs involving people dying or having...