What is your happiness project?
You have a full life. You may be married and are lucky to have a loving husband or wife and gifted with healthy and intelligent children. Or you may be single, a solo parent or separated but blessed with a thriving career and loyal and supportive family and friends. You have many of your aspirations and cravings met, but you still suffer from midlife depression or some kind of unhappiness. That’s exactly how Gretchen Rubin, author of the bestseller The Happiness Project, felt at many points of her life, when days slipped by seemingly unrewarded as she yielded to trivial irritations, gloom, and the feeling of being down in the dumps.
On a city bus ride one morning Rubin experienced a sudden intuitive leap of self-awareness and understanding. She was discontented and started asking herself what she really wanted. Her response was quite simple: “I want to be happy.” Conscious that she ought to be happy and enjoy her daily life, Rubin embarked on a yearlong happiness project, which became the foundation for her now well-followed blog, www.happiness-project.com, and subsequently, this tome. She set out on her journey armed with inspirations from Thoreau, Epicurus, Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, the Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey, even Saint Therese of Lisieux for spiritual guidance.
Rubin created a written chart against which she could measure her progress daily. She supplied it with tangible and quantifiable happiness resolutions, and superbly organized them into themes: leisure, friendship, money, and mindfulness. Month by month, Rubin concentrated on a different happiness strategy, implementing things that could bring it to life, watched what happened, and tweaked it or changed course to get the loudest happiness bang possible. Based on a study, Rubin cited that happiness is 50 percent genetic, and 10 to 20 percent resulting from circumstances. The remaining 30 to 40 percent is yours to maximize. Rubin gave some leads that you can possibly heed.
• Get energized. It’s often hard to tackle all the things you want to do in life if you don’t have high energy. If your liveliness and forcefulness are sapped, taking the path of least resistance becomes easier. Your tendency is simply not to work on the important things in life, which in turn contributes largely to a sense of unhappiness. Your happiness journey will start on the right foot if your vigor and vitality are boosted. Substantial sleep and exercise can get you self-energized. When you don’t get adequate sleep for a few nights in a row, you feel exhausted and unproductive. When you fall off the “exercise wagon,” your energy level drops like a rock and impacts your happiness quotient.
• Focus on the positive. If you are married or in a relationship, concentrate on ways to accentuate your partner’s good points instead of browbeating them over the things they don’t do well. You’ll both wind up happier that way. Avoid using your partner as a problem bin, don’t nag or play the blame game. If you want something done, just do it, and don’t use it as a psychological weapon. Rubin said, “Whatever love I might feel in my heart, others will see only in my actions.”
• Give it a shot. When you say to yourself, “I could never do that,” but after putting in time, talent and energy you find that you can do the task, you’ll find yourself at a big emotional peak. The best way to aim higher and go beyond what you think you’re capable of is to simply try and try again. If you fail 10 or even 50 times, that’s fine. You’re learning what it takes to succeed each time you fail. The key is not giving up, not dwelling on the failure, but getting up and running again.
• Keep a lighthearted disposition. Enjoy your “fog happiness” moments — the kind of joy you get from activities that, closely examined, don’t really seem to bring much pleasure at all, yet somehow they do. It’s just like hosting a party. It doesn’t seem enjoyable as you bustle about, tend to the guests and ensure everything is in order, but when the party is over you feel undoubtedly happy and lighthearted. It can be paralleled to parenthood, when you are reminded to lighten up at home, appreciate the good fortune of a healthy family, and control your quick bursts of temper.
• Find your happiness battery. Happiness is often found when you seek out sources of happiness — things you do that bring you delight, no matter what they are. Those things are exclusive to every individual, but when you find those things, devote some serious time to them. Block out time for things you want to do or are passionate about. Be serious about play. It can refresh, reinvigorate and recharge you. Different things make different people happy. Your idea of fun should be the only thing that matters. Nobody’s happiness is superior to yours.
• Find time to bond. Friendship is a convenient thing to neglect but, truth be told, you have to make time for it. Label it as “important and urgent” in your schedule. Derive thrills from time spent with friends — potluck dinners, days away, group spa treatments, early-morning exercises or any regular meet-up for chitchat (not gossip), and bonding.
• Stop wishing time away. The last seven years of your life may have flown by. For sure, you do not, by any means, want time to go any faster. And there will surely come a day that you wish you had more time and that the days would have gone slower. Make the most of it and enjoy every last second. As Rubin wrote, “Days are long but the years are short.” Avoid whining and whimpering about how the day is down for the count. Today is the only shot you have at today.
• Buy some happiness. You, just like everyone, maximize the enjoyment you get from your spending. Spend too much and you’re not happy. Spend too little and you’re not happy, either. Find the balance by focusing on just buying things you know will bring value to your life, but don’t chide yourself constantly for doing so. Look at your true passions and focus on things that complement those passions, and don’t spend as much on the rest.
• Find a divine master. Spirituality is another interesting beast in the stable of happiness. For many, there is a lot of solace in contemplating the mysteries of life. If you find peace in seeking these answers, seek them out. Read about the lives and beliefs of spiritual leaders of all stripes to bring lessons and inspiration. Find power in keeping a gratitude notebook. Write down things you’re grateful for each day, as you keep in mind how many gifts and blessings have found their way into your life.
• Embark on a big, ambitious project. One great way to build upon a passion is to get involved in a venture that requires you to dig deep: write a novel, master a particular technology, or start an ambitious blog. To do these things, you have to set aside time, but the projects themselves provide a lot of spiritual happiness and personal reward.
• Listen to what life is telling you. Pay attention to events as they happen. It’s easy to feel that currents that are largely out of your control are sweeping you along. Yet, just as often, if you study your life, those currents make sense. You have a surprising amount of control over them as well, and that awareness can be a real source of happiness. One effective way to do this is to meditate or pray a bit each day. Spend some time doing nothing more than emptying your mind of all of the mental junk you’ve picked up and clear out that space. Looking at the world with fresher eyes makes all the difference.
• Wear a happy hat. If you’re finding more happiness in your life, how do you maintain it? To put it simply, just pass it on. It’s very easy to do this. Laugh when others are around. Laugh more — small children laugh 400 times a day versus adults who do it only 17 times. Help others out. Be positive when you talk about things. Surround yourself with people who do the same thing. This will all add up to a lot of reflected happiness in your life. Rubin declared, “One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make others happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.”
• Kick perfection away. Every time something in your life gets better, you immediately want it to be even better. It’s one thing to push yourself to new levels, and another to be so centered on striving for faultlessness that you don’t stop to appreciate all of the remarkable growth you’ve achieved. Reevaluate the way you think about a lot of things. You may be a perfectionist and you want everything to be perfect every time. But is there really such a thing? The key is to put little positive steps into your life and let the aggregate of those steps help you reach a higher level of personal joy. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Rubin proclaimed.
Rubin also shared a Happiness Project Toolbox to help you put up your own “happiness project.” Expectedly, each project will be unique, and there’s no right or wrong direction. You can bring into play any or all of these things: commit to concrete, actionable actions; challenge your group to make promises that will encourage the members to deliver their best, and be accountable for their feats; identify principles to guide you in what you do; put together things that inspire you and spark your imagination; jot down any useful tips to boost your efficiency or memorialize your aspirations; create a gratitude journal, a reading log and a track device; remind yourself of what you’ve learned and the bits of wisdom you want to share with other people.
The concept of happiness resonates with everyone. It’s not a mushy idea to think of, talk about or put on your table. It’s as real as a 100-year-old soft drink brand that delivers joy in a truck. Happiness is a box of chocolate. It’s in your heart as you open it to love, to help, to pursue a passion or to follow a dream. It’s in other people’s hearts as they do the same. You can plan for it. What is your happiness project?
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