Happiness Is In Your Hands

Gretchen Rubin had a problem.  She had a great life, a loving family, and excellent health, and yet she wasn’t truly happy.  It wasn’t that Rubin was particularly unhappy; she just didn’t have the joy and contentment in her everyday life that she would have expected. After taking a hard look at her life, Rubin realized the power of happiness lay in her own hands, and “The Happiness Project” was born. Using authors, philosophers, researchers, and even pop culture, Rubin developed a year-long plan to see if changing her attitudes could change her life.

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun details Rubin’s journey through a year of self-exploration.  She begins by developing twelve resolutions for her life, based on the thirteen virtues of Benjamin Franklin. These include everything from “lightening up” to being herself, and to make the project manageable, Rubin addresses one resolution per month.  Under each resolution, Rubin’s pathway to happiness includes everything from money management (money really can buy happiness, within reason) to cleaning out clutter, to parenting, using practical advice as well as scientific research to back up her theories.

One of the most appealing aspects of The Happiness Project is that despite her best efforts, Rubin is not always, in fact, happy. Her willingness to detail her setbacks (such as yelling at her young children or fighting with her husband) as well as her successes makes the book more accessible.  Knowing that Rubin stumbles and falls, just like the rest of us, makes her seem less like an author and more like the woman behind you in line at the grocery store.

For those wanting more information, The Happiness Project offers a supplemental reading list as well as a list of resources through Rubin’s website, www.happiness-project.com. The website includes free downloads, tips and quizzes, and links to Rubin’s Facebook page for anyone wishing to join a “happiness group.” Rubin recently published a follow-up book as well, entitled Happier at Home.

 Although I am not quite ready to start my own happiness project, I decided to try one suggestion right away: creating order in chaos. There were plenty of areas in my house to choose from. I spent a long, tiresome afternoon sorting through papers, books, and general detritus in my living room. Following Rubin’s lead, I sorted items into things I couldn’t live without and things to be given or thrown away.  Rubin mentions throughout the book that often the activities that make you the happiest, oddly, don’t make you happy at the time you are actually doing them.  That was certainly true of my cleaning project, even though it was only one afternoon.  But the satisfaction and feeling of empowerment from just that one job took me into the next week feeling refreshed and, well… happy.