Happiness

Hi Team,

I've been contemplating lately buying an e-book reader, to help consolidate the library a little, and make it a little more portable. I generally (although not so much lately) am on the go quite a lot and I like the look of the e-readers, seems like an easy way to take a few books with you rather than having to choose one that may or may not fit my mood on any given day. That said, my friend Addie lent me her Kindle the other day to let me read a book on it and see if I thought it was easy to use, etc. This is all beside the point because I really just wanted to review the first chapter of the book I started - 'The Happiness Project.'

Now as a preface, I loved 'Eat, Pray, Love' and have tried, even BC (Before Cancer) to live my life in a no-regrets manner. That said, I still find myself on a somewhat regular basis feeling slightly irritated, not quite happy, feeling like there is just something missing and just generally like I could be living my life as a happier person. In the big picture, I am very happy with my accomplishments in life, I have already accomplished quite a few things that I consider to be on my 'Bucket List' and generally consider myself to be lucky in having a loving family, great, fun, supportive friends, a good job with a disposable income, and a steady roof over my head. I do a decent job (even BC) of checking in with myself to make sure that if I were to die tomorrow, that I would be happy with the way I have lived my life. All that said, on a daily basis, getting up and going to work or just living my daily life, there is definitely room for more consistent happiness.

That exact subject is what Gretchen Rubin tackles in 'The Happiness Project,' and with a slightly more realistic feeling than quitting your job and marriage and leaving the country for a year. Although that does sound somewhat appealing to me, I don't have the ability financially (or at this point health-wise) or even in my risk-taking sensibility to do something that dramatic. She takes on the subject of every-day happiness in a methodical, project-based, very left-brained manner, with the overarching intention of increasing her day-to-day happiness. Now, as I've only read the first chapter and a half, I don't have any big epiphanies from the book yet, but already I love the subject matter and stay tuned for my review on the rest of it.

I've often contemplated how short life is and how people generally tend to put their own happiness in other's hands. For example, my boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/partner/cat/dog/etc doesn't make me happy; my job/lack of job/lack of income/etc doesn't make me happy; my city/small town/country/president/taxes/lack of resources/etc doesn't make me happy. I actually came to a realization a while ago, specifically my junior year in college, that it was up to me to make me happy and nobody else is going to do it for me, whether I like it or not. Having had this realization fairly early in life does not mean that I remember it on a daily basis however, and I still have quite some opportunity for it's application in my daily life. But, one interesting aspect that I have applied fairly frequently, and still believe, my friend Monika laughs when I tell her - that if you don't feel happy, sometimes you just have to smile at that girl in the mirror until she smiles back at you. If you smile, and act happy, even if it feels like you're faking it for a little while, you will eventually feel happy - because happiness is contagious! Of course there is more to it than that I'm sure, but you have to start somewhere...

Love,
Amy