It's Crowded in Here

Happy Reading: The Happiness Project

Around the time I was 12 I remember stumbling on a box of my dad's books that had been put in the closet under the stairs and never unpacked. For a bookish person like me, it was like finding buried treasure. I still have many of the books that were in that box as part of my private collection. I read nearly every book that was in it, until I came to one entitled I'm Okay, You're Okay which may well be the modern father of self-help books.

I wasn't an excessively happy person even at that age, but I still turned my nose up at the idea of "self-help". Even today, the words have a negative connotation to me. If you needed to help yourself, that clearly means whatever it was that needs fixing is so embarrassing you can't even get professional help for it, right? All that changed for me last summer when I bought an ereader. In the interest of being frugal, I decided to stick as much as possible to borrowing ebooks from the library. The fact that I could do this at home where no one could see what I was checking out and that I was limited to what the library had on offer led me to my first foray into self-help books.

I'm not sure what it was about The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin that drew me to it, but I knew I would love to learn to be a happier person. I'd read biographies like Eat, Pray, Love and Walden where the author found great happiness by making big changes and I admired them but found the idea unapproachable. Afterall, if happiness required grand gestures, most of us are screwed. Gretchen's main premise is about finding happiness by making small adjustments in attitude and habits. It's sort of the equivalent of saving all your pocket change and then being able to afford a vacation. It's practical and doable by everyone.

Gretchen's "day job" is as a researcher and writer of non-fiction books, and it shows in how the book is written. In addition to being methodical and organized, everything she does is backed by research that most of us wouldn't begin to know how to find and that sadly doesn't usually see the light of day outside of a small circle of scientists practicing in the same field. Then she takes that research and puts it to the test. Not everything she tries is right for her, but even the learning process is valuable.

I loved this book best of all because it doesn't have a holier-than-thou feel to it. She admits her faults and failings, and then she grows and learns from them. She encourages the reader to make their own happiness project and to use her's as a framework and not a rule book, which is exactly what I've done. It also helped me to see that you don't have to be "broken" to want to improve. The book is not for people who are depressed; it's for the average folk who want a little more happiness in their daily lives.

In the end, I bought a copy of the ebook for myself so I could read it again make notes and highlights on what inspired me most. I also follow her blog and earlier today I read that The Happiness Project has now been on the New York Times bestsellers list for two years running.

Stay in the moment

I saw this last week and just wanted to share it. I love when science proves right the things that we intrinsically feel to be true. I guess some would say, "If it works, why do you need to prove it works?" I know the placebo effect can be very real for people, but I'm a natural skeptic so it's easier for me to believe in something when there is hard data to support it.

So far my attempts to stay present are definitely having an improvement. I love the term "mind wandering" that the speaker uses. I can't say that I'm having fewer negative thoughts, especially since it's the first week of a new quarter and I'm tired and overloaded already, but I feel like I'm spending less time focused on the negative and finding it easier to break out of the negative tape loop.

The Present is a Gift

I am not Buddhist, but I've always admired their ideal of living in the present. I feel like I spend far too much time living in a past that I cannot change or a future that I only fear might come true, and not enough time living in the moment that is happening. Especially recently, I find myself caught up in a negative tape loop of arguments that have already passed or arguments that I wish or fear might occur in the future. Essentially, I find myself fighting fights with people who aren't even there.

This week I have been making a special effort to stay present, or when I find myself not in the present to pull myself back there. When I find myself going over and over an argument that I'll never have, or thinking about something that happened weeks ago, I pull myself out of my head and look around the room. It really does feel like pulling my mind back into my body. It's like I was looking right through the world around me and not seeing it at all, and then suddenly it is there again like I had left and come back.

I've tried to practice being present in the past and didn't have a whole lot of luck with it, but I feel like focusing on the times when I am worrying about the past or future and choosing to be present instead of being in those bad head spaces has made a huge difference this week. I finished finals earlier this week and I only get ten days for spring break so I'm trying to make the most of these ten days to destress and recharge, perhaps even recapture my enthusiasm. I can't do that if I'm still gnawing at my anger over a grade on a test or worrying about the drama that is sure to come in the next quarter of school.

One of the best things about being in the present is simply how ephemeral that present is. If it is a good moment, I can enjoy it fully, but if it is a bad moment I know that it will pass quickly. I'm tired of fighting one-sided fights. It winds me up so the next time I have to interact with that person I practically spit acid at them which accomplishes nothing, let alone all of my personal time I wasted on being upset and angry about things I cannot change. I can't change the past and I can't say what the future holds, so I will take each moment as they come and only as they come as often as I can manage. More importantly I will treasure every good moment and not overlook it because I am still living in a bad one.

Happiness

When I was very little and people asked my what I wanted to be when I grew up, I responded, "Tall." When I got a little older, though, my answer became, "Happy." When I grow up, I want to be happy. At the age of 31, I'm not beginning to realize what a lofty goal I set for myself. You see, when we want to be something we have to do the work to become that thing. Happiness does take work. It takes work every second of every day to be happy.

I confess that I do not feel that I've been happy for any significant portion of my life. I will also confess that I believe that is largely my fault, although I did not always realize it. I was physically and mentally abused as a child and it would be a long time before I realize that wasn't my fault. My teenage years were filled with struggles and tragedies for which I felt I had no support system to help me cope. In my twenties, I felt confused and directionless, as well as completely derailed by a 5 year battle with an incurable disease.

I have always been interested in self improvement, however. At various times I've done yoga, practiced mediation, trained to run a 5k, learned everything I could about self sufficient living. I think I've maintained the subconscious desire to Be Happy without realizing it. When I got to the end of my twenties I had somewhat of a spiritual awakening. I had ended a 2.5 year emotionally abusive relationship and found myself single for the first time. It was the first chance I'd really had to take stock and I was shocked at the state of my own life.

I also learned a lot from that period of my life, about what freedom of choice really means. I wasn't happy, clearly, but I could choose to be happy if I wanted to. I could change the things in my life that were dragging me down. I started by going back to school, which led me to having to learn about money -- What it really represented in terms if happiness, what to do with it, and what not to do with it. Over the last 4 years I've completed the prerequisites for a medical program, applied, and have been accepted; saved $30,000 for my educational expenses; learned to stand up for myself; and truly fell in love for the first time.

Recently I checked out an ebook from the library called The Happiness Project. It's the autobiographical story of a woman's project to spend a year trying to find more happiness in her life, both extrinsically and intrinsically. I have been so inspired by it that I bought the ebook to read again so I could take notes on all of the things that inspired me. Today I wrote down all of my various notes and now I just need to organize my own Happiness Project so I can get started!

I'm a bit intimidated by the idea of making such a concentrated effort to be happier. Right now my mental state is not great. I'm exhausted all of the time. I hate my job and fantasize daily about quitting. I'm unhappy with my physical condition and overwhelmed by all the work I have in my job and all the work that will come from starting school this fall. Despite all of that, I feel like now is the perfect time. Now I need this more than ever. Wish me luck!