The Happiness Project

I have a habit of reading books about year-long personal experiments. The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment by A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Yes by Maria Dahvana Headley, Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine. My list could go on. When I saw 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 by Gretchen Rubin come through the library for the tenth time, I decided I needed to read that one as well.

Gretchen Rubin was not an unhappy person, but she felt like she could be happier, so came up with her idea for a happiness project. Each month she plans to take on new resolutions in different areas of her life: parenting, marriage, work. By December she will try keep them all. Of course, she can't keep all the resolutions all of the time but through the process she finds out what works for her and develops 12 personal commandments and four "splendid truths" to maximize her happiness.  At the end of the year, Gretchen is, in fact, a happier person, and her friends and family have found themselves positively impacted as well.

The Happiness Project is an easy, interesting, and enjoyable read that includes bits of research, tips, advice, and feedback from readers of the author's blog. Those looking to start a happiness project of their own will find this a useful read. If you're like me and don't plan to start a project, there are still tips and ideas you can easily incorporate into your daily life.