As I wrote in my previous post, this blog was inspired by (among other things) my reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, whose blog I have been following for the past few months. I strongly suggest checking out her blog (http://happiness-project.com/) and her book. Plus-talk about good timing-there is an interview with her in today's Express: http://www.expressnightout.com/content/2010/01/gretchen-rubin-the-happiness-project.php. Nix (sister) and I went to her book event last night and she decided to buy her own copy AND started reading when we got home. That's quite an endorsement!
Gretchen (hey, she emailed me personally--even with 35,000 readers!--so I feel like we're on a first-name basis) started her happiness project after an "epiphany" made her question how her life was going and how she wanted to be: "I asked myself, “What do I want from life, anyway?” and I thought, “I want to be happy”—but I never spent any time thinking about happiness. “I should do a happiness project!” I realized. And so I have."
Gretchen spent a year focusing on 12 areas (one per month) and tracking her progress in each. Here are her 12 personal commandments:
Most people who know me would probably doubt that I need to work to work on my happiness. I'm definitely not lacking in that department. But, I think we could all benefit from some of the ideas she shares. Plus, the happier I am, the happier I hope to make the people around me. So, while my blog isn't focused on happiness in and of itself, it is an outgrowth of me thinking about happiness and how I can add more of it to my life...which was an outgrowth of me following some of her happiness principles/concepts! lol.
One of the things I'm going to be working on is my own list of personal commandments, which I'll post as I come up with them. You can see other people's personal commandments here at Gretchen's Happiness Project Toolkit site: http://happinessprojecttoolbox.com/personal_commandments.html. This is also great resource if you want to start your own happiness project!
The way I see it, increasing your happiness is about figuring out the things that make you happy, and the things that make you unhappy, and adjusting accordingly. As I was reading the book, I stopped to think about what makes me happy. Surprisingly, it was actually sort of difficult :-/ It sounds like such a simple question, but I hadn't really thought about it before. Now that I have thought about it, here are a few things that make me truly happy:
- reading
- eating well (veggies, fruits, whole (REAL) foods, etc.)
- spending time with my sisters
- being home (in st. thomas)
- listening to music
- playing and watching (preferably live) sports
- waking up early
- going to sleep at a decent hour so I can wake up early
- discovering new (to me) things: music, food, music, places, people, etc.
I do most of this stuff quite often so it's not surprising that I'm quite happy!
Soooooo readers, have you heard of this book? What do you think of the idea of a Happiness Project? Would you consider yourself happy? What does your list of "happiness-inducers" look like? Do you do/get enough of the things that make you happy? Other thoughts?
:-)
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