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

Brain” class that claimed to be able to change the way in which people processed visual information so anyone could learn to draw. Perfect. I figured that, as with laughter yoga, I’d be able to find a “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” class in Manhattan, and sure enough, the class was offered by the program’s principal New York instructor, right in his own apartment in SoHo. I “indulged in a modest splurge,” signed up, and for five days took the subway downtown for a day that started at 9:30 A.M . and ended at 5:30 P.M .
    Novelty and challenge bring big boosts in happiness. Unfortunately, novelty and challenge also bring exhaustion and frustration. During the class, I felt intimidated, defensive, and hostile—at times almost panickywith anxiety. I felt drained each night, and my back hurt. I’m not sure why it was so stressful, but trying to follow the instructor’s directions, squint, measure against my upheld thumb, and draw a straight line on a diagonal, was physically and even emotionally taxing. One person in our little class had a kind of breakdown and quit after three days. Yet it was also tremendously gratifying to learn something new—to partake of the atmosphere of growth.

    I drew this self-portrait on the first day of class. Later, when I showed it to a friend, she said, “Come on, admit it. Didn’t you do a bad job on purpose, to make any progress you made look more dramatic?” Actually, nope. This was my best effort.

    I drew this self-portrait on the last day of class. My instructor helped me with all the hard parts, and it doesn’t actually resemble me very much, but it does look like a portrait of a person.
    Drawing exercised an unaccustomed part of my brain, but apart from that, just the fact that I was taking a class boosted my mindfulness. Being in a different neighborhood at an unusual time of day heightened my awareness of my surroundings; New York City is so beautiful, so endlessly compelling. The rhythm of the day was very different from my typical schedule. I enjoyed meeting new people. Plus—the class worked! I drew my hand, I drew a chair, I drew a self-portrait that, although it didn’t look much like me, did look like an actual person.
    The drawing class was a good illustration of one of my Secrets of Adulthood: “Happiness doesn’t always make you feel happy.” Activities that contribute to long-term happiness don’t always make me feel good in the short term; in fact they’re sometimes downright unpleasant.
    From drawing, I turned to music—another dormant part of my mind. According to research, listening to music is one of the quickest, simplest ways to boost mood and energy and to induce a particular mood. Music stimulates the parts of the brain that trigger happiness, and it can relax the body—in fact, studies show that listening to a patient’s choice of music during medical procedures can lower the patient’s heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety level.
    Nevertheless, one of the things that I’ve accepted about myself, as part of “Being Gretchen,” is that I don’t have much appreciation for music. I wish I enjoyed music more, but I don’t. Every once in a while, though, I fixate on a song I really love—recently I went through an obsession with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge.”
    The other day, while writing in a coffee shop, I overheard a song thatI love but had forgotten about: Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You.” I went home, loaded it onto my iPod, and listened to it that night while I was cleaning my office. This song flooded me with tender feelings for Jamie. Yes, we have gone through the hard times and the good! Yes, I have to praise him like I should! This would have been a good activity for February, the month of marriage.
    I thought again about Jung playing with blocks to recapture the passionate engagement of his boyhood. When I was little, I used to dance around the room to my favorite music. I was too young to read, so I asked my mother to mark the record of The Nutcracker Suite so I’d be able to find it. But I stopped dancing when I got older. Maybe I should try dancing around the room again.
    I didn’t want anyone walking in on me while I was doing it, and it took a long time before I had an opportunity. I hadn’t realized before how rare it was for me to be home alone. Finally, one Sunday afternoon, I told Jamie I was going to stay behind when he took the girls around the corner to visit his