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

way to practice mindfulness is through meditation, which is recommended by Buddhists as a spiritual exercise and also by happiness experts of all sorts. Nevertheless, I just couldn’t bring myself to try meditation. (I took yoga twice a week, but my class didn’t emphasize the mental aspect of yoga.)
    “I just can’t believe you’re not practicing meditation,” a friend chided me. “If you’re studying happiness, you really have to try it.” She herself was a veteran of a ten-day silent meditation retreat. “The fact that you don’t want to try meditation means that you need it desperately.”
    “You’re probably right.” I sighed. “But I just can’t bring myself to do it. It holds no appeal for me.”
    Everyone’s happiness project is unique. I enjoyed posting to my blog six days a week—a task that some people wouldn’t dream of undertaking—but sit in silence for fifteen minutes each day, as my friend urged? I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Another friend made an eloquent case for why I should spend more time in nature. Both arguments left me cold. When I’d started planning my happiness project, I told myself that I would try everything, but I’d quickly realized that this goal was neither possible nor desirable. Perhaps I’d try meditation in Happiness Project II, but for now I would seek happiness in the ways that seemed most natural to me.
    There were other ways to harness the power of mindfulness, however, apart from meditation. I was already using my Resolutions Chart, a practice that led me to act more mindfully through the purposeful review of my actions and my thoughts. I filled in my chart at the end of the day, at a quiet time when I was undistracted and alone—though, given the nature of my personality, this period of self-examination felt more like conversation with Jiminy Cricket than communion with the universe. This month, I sought to find other strategies that would help me pay attention and stay in the moment. I also hoped to stimulate my brain to think in newways—to jolt myself out of automatic behavior and to awaken sleepy parts of my mind.
    MEDITATE ON KOANS.
    Although I didn’t take up meditation, I did find certain aspects of Buddhism fascinating. I was struck by the symbolism of Buddhism, the way the Buddha was sometimes portrayed by an empty seat, a pair of footprints, a tree, or a pillar of fire to signify that he’d passed beyond form. I loved the numbered lists that pop up throughout Buddhism: the Triple Refuge; the Noble Eightfold Path; the Four Noble Truths; the eight auspicious symbols: parasol, golden fish, treasure vase, lotus, conch shell, endless knot, victory banner, and dharma wheel.
    The aspect that intrigued me most, however, was the study of Zen koans (rhymes with Ben Cohen’s). A koan is a question or a statement that can’t be understood logically. Zen Buddhist monks meditate on koans as a way to abandon dependence on reason in their pursuit of enlightenment. The most famous koan is “Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?” Another is “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.” Or “What was your face before your parents were born?” A koan can’t be grasped by reason or explained in words; meditating on koans promotes mindful thinking because it’s not possible to comprehend their meaning with familiar, conventional logic.
    After I learned about koans, I realized that I already had my own list of personal koans—I just hadn’t thought of them that way. For years, in another example of seemingly pointless note taking, I’d been keeping a list of enigmatic lines, and in odd moments, I’d think about them. I was surprised to see how many I’d collected. My favorites:
    Robert Frost: The best way out is always through.
    J. M. Barrie: We set out to be wrecked.
    Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: I choose all.
    Francis Bacon/Heraclitus: Dry light is ever the best.
    Mark 4:25: For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
    Gertrude Stein: I like a room with a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.
    Elias Canetti: Kant Catches Fire.
    T. S. Eliot: Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”/Let us go and make our visit.
    Virginia Woolf: She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.
    These fragments haunted me. They floated through my mind at odd times—when I was waiting on a subway platform or staring at my