Chapter 1: The Happiness Project

SHE BLOGGED: So what's the Happiness Project book all about? It's about a woman named Gretchen Rubin who decides to dedicate a year to being happier.

Here's me. I'm going to chronicle this reading project and I'm taking you with me (and my husband because he has no choice).

Think of this as the cliff note version of her book. I'll highlight the parts that resonated with me. Let's begin.

Rubin sets about explaining to her husband what she hopes to achieve with the “project,” he initially interprets the news that she's unhappy.

"I am happy -- but I'm not as happy as I should be. I have such a good life, I want to appreciate it more - and live up to it better."

True dat. Ok. I'm with you girl.

Rubin: Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens. I want to be one of those people.

Working on my happiness wouldn't just make me happier; it would boost the happiness of the people around me.

Makes sense, I’m in. So Rubin sets about creating projects for herself for the month of January -- Go to sleep earlier. Exercise better. Toss, restore, organize. Tackle a nagging task. Act more energetic. All seems doable, right?

Go to sleep earlier. This may actually be one of the harder ones for me to do. My body and brain is trained to hit the sack after midnight. Time to untrain…in baby steps, and so far so good. I’ve been in bed before 11 pm for the past two nights, which has allowed me to feel more rested in the morning because I’m actually getting 8 hours of sleep. Unheard of. I still hit the snooze button a couple of times, but I don’t hate life when I get up.

Exercise better. My husband I are pretty active so I don’t envision me changing this too much, but I will say that because I am sleeping earlier and getting up feeling more rested, I feel like I have more energy (I say that now). So in other words, my brain is on faster and it’s taking me less time to gather my thoughts and do my morning chores (figure out what to wear, get dressed, pack lunch, make coffee, feed dog). I’m usually so late that there’s never time to walk the dog. Guess who got a walk this morning?

Toss, restore, organize. Please. If you know me, you know that I don’t need prompting to do this. However, it made me reevaluate rooms and closets that I have tackled before and consider tackling them again. Look out!

Tackle a nagging task. Same thing. Not my style. Because it’s a nagging task, I usually try to get it done as soon as possible. At least I can’t or don't want to think of anything that's been left undone. Perhaps my husband can chime in here. Probably one of the things that I procrastinate on the most is making my dentist appointments. I solved that at my last visit by making the receptionist just book my next cleaning in advance so it’s not left up to me to call them!

Act more energetic. Probably the hardest thing on the project list. To me it means, acting happier. Rubin says, “Act the way I want to feel.” Oy.

I am inclined to believe that Asian people are brought up to be miserable, to not be happy for fear of being disappointed. I can find many other Asian friends of my age who would agree.

Stand by, if there was any project listed that I need working on, this last one is it.