that's what the author spends a year trying to find out in the book 'the happiness project.' let me start by saying, the author is not unhappy. she wants to be MORE happy. let me also say, i hate this book. i'll finish reading it not because it is good, but because the topic (when she sticks to it) is a good one. author is whiny, over-researched (who knew that could be a problem?) and selfish. she mentions on nearly every page how she worries that this project is selfish...shouldn't she be trying to make other people happy instead? she brags regularly about all the research she's done for this 'project' but rarely actually uses the research or even tells the reader what the research says. now i understand that technically this book is a memoir, but if she did all this research, i want to hear about the actually research a little, not just be told she did it. maybe the book needs to be a little less memoir and a little more self-help for me to not be annoyed by it. i don't know.
on the other hand, she has definitely made me think at lot about the topic and the idea of starting my own happiness project (which i guess she's going to tell me how to do at the end of the book). i'll be the first to admit that while i am definitely not unhappy, i am a pretty dour personality in general. according to a little of the research that did poke its way into the book, whether a person has a happy personality is genetic, at least partially...the other part falls under the 'fake it until you make it' school of thought. i come from a family who is not overly happy i guess you could say. at any given moment, you could look at one of us and we'd appear more sad or angry than we do happy. that isn't because we're sad or angry but because the default setting on our face isn't a smile. some people are naturally smiley and perky. we, as a family, are not. doesn't make us unhappy, just means others have a hard time telling if we are happy unless we're overly happy about something. but i do think i could use some more happiness in my life. as could everyone.
the author had some interesting ideas on how to make her life happier. some of them i feel are really stupid (mostly because they don't apply to me or my life) and others i think are fantastic ideas. she has her book divided into months and each month she focuses in on a different type of change she made to help bring more happiness to her life. so far i'm only up to june so i have a lot of read yet, but here is what has spoken to me so far:
1. declutter your life. this is probably the one that connected to me the most. she decluttered her families apartment by getting rid of all the stuff that wasn't necessary whether it was clothes, toys, appliances, junk...whatever. and while anyone who has ever seen my house would understand that i live in a lot of clutter, the idea hit me at another level too. what about people? don't we all have people in our lives that take up space for no reason? those people we hang out with because we've known them since kindergarten so we feel obligated, but in reality we no longer have anything in common? shouldn't it be ok to stop calling them? i mean, really, does it actually make you happy to see those people? i'll be honest, i'm already pretty good at doing that decluttering. but there is a person (type of person?) i would like to declutter from my life. this person makes it difficult for me to want to come home at night. my roommate. he's a big source of clutter in my house and life that doesn't make me happy. as much as i'm happy when he hands me money, that happiness fades as soon as i pay the mortgage and i'm left with 30 more days of unhappiness until that money hits my hands again. so thank you 'the happiness project' for confirming my decision to kick him out. :)
wow...this is getting longer than i thought it would. time to take a break.
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