The best way to gain a proper perspective about life is to visit a cemetery.

You might have many problems, but that is part and parcel of being alive. Compared to those buried in the cemetery, just how serious are your difficulties?

Learn to have a sense of proportion to events. If you fail to do so, you might react with equal levels of distress to someone's spilling soup on your clothes as you would to news of the outbreak of global nuclear warfare.

Today, when something bothers you, ask yourself: "On a scale of one to 100 (with 100 applying to nuclear war), what number would I give this situation?"

You'll find with this perspective that many potential mountains will easily shrink to molecules.

Rabbi Nachum of Huradna used to say, "If I had already died and the Almighty told me I could come back to life again, imagine how happy I would be. Now that I am alive, I should feel that same joy!"

(see Chayai Hamussar, vol.2, p. 176, 200; Gateway to Happiness, p.65)