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

I’d identified it as the fourth element of happiness. My happiness project had proved to me, however, that the atmosphere of growth was a huge contributor to happiness. Although my instinct was to shy away from novelty and challenge, in fact they are a key source of happiness, even for an unadventurous soul like me. In particular, I’d seen how the atmosphere of growth provided by my blog had become an enormous source of happiness. My successful mastery of that skill had given me feelings of gratification and mastery that in turn had energized me to push myself even harder.
    There was another question that people kept asking me: “What about Jamie—has he changed, is he happier?” One thing I knew: Jamie wouldn’t be very happy if I pestered him to provide a comprehensive analysis of his emotional state. Even so, one night I couldn’t resist asking him, “Do you think my happiness project has made you happier? Do you think you’ve changed at all?”
    “Nope,” he answered.
    But he had changed. Without any nagging on my part, he was taking on tasks, such as doing holiday shopping or putting our finances on Quicken, that he’d never done before. He was much better about doinglittle chores like answering my e-mails and emptying the diaper pail now than he’d been a year ago. Not only did he remember my birthday this month—he wished me “Happy Birthday” the minute we woke up that morning—he organized a family party, got me a present, and took photos (he never takes photos).
    He’d absorbed more of my happiness talk than I’d realized, too. One day when we were out doing errands, I overheard him say to Eliza, “When we get to the Container Store, you’re going to see something very interesting. Mommy is going to buy something for $5 that’s going to make her extremely happy. Very little things can make a person happy, it doesn’t matter how expensive something is.” The item in question? A sponge holder that fastens to the side of the sink with suction cups. I’d coveted one ever since I spotted this device in my brother-and sister-in-law’s apartment. And Jamie was right, I was made extremely happy by that purchase—but he would never have made an observation like that last year. But of all the happiness-boosting things he did, my favorite was the e-mail he sent me after I was angry that he hadn’t made a phone call that he’d promised to make:
    From: Rubin James
To: Gretchen Rubin
Subject: don’t be mad—see below

    I confess that when I started the happiness project, I feared that if I stopped nagging and complaining, Jamie would leave all the work to me. That didn’t happen. Now, correlation is not causation, so maybe my happiness project had nothing to do with the ways in which he changed—but for whatever reason, the atmosphere in our house was happier. That’s not a very scientific standard of measurement. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see. Maybe, but who cares?
    If I think I’m happier, I am happier. That’s the Fourth Splendid Truth. The Fourth Splendid Truth may have been the last Splendid Truth I identified, but in fact I’d understood it on some level from that first moment on the bus, when I had the idea for my happiness project. I’m not happy unless I think I’m happy—and by pushing myself to be mindful of my happiness, I can truly experience it.
    Although the First Splendid Truth was extremely valuable in showing me how to change my life to be happier, the Second Splendid Truth was more important to my understanding of the nature of happiness.
    One of the best ways to make myself happy is to make other people happy.
    One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy myself .
    The Second Splendid Truth made clear to me why working to be happy isn’t a selfish goal and why, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” When I was feeling unhappy, I felt dispirited, lethargic, defensive, and uninterested in other people; even worse, when I felt angry or resentful, I searched for excuses to feel even more angry and resentful. On the other hand, when I felt happy, I was more likely to be lighthearted, generous, creative, kind, encouraging, and helpful.
    December was a crazy time for my sister, Elizabeth. She and her writing partner were writing a pilot for a network TV show (one of the most important work opportunities she’d ever had), she and her fiancé, Adam, had just bought a house,