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

for this month were a bit of a struggle. I’d expected to find it fun to have fun, to go off the path, to start a collection, and it was fun, but only after I truly forced myself to do these things. I was a bit dismayed to realize how attached I was to my routine, how uninterested I was in trying new things, how much I disliked turning away from my self-assigned reading and writing. Was I really such a dull creature of habit?
    Then I thought—wait. Novelty is stimulating, and it clearly was good for me, from time to time, to do something different. But my efforts had the unexpected benefit of making me realize how much I loved my habits and the familiar stops in my day. The pleasure of doing a thing in the same way, at the same time, every day, and savoring it, is worth noting. As Andy Warhol observed, “Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.” I loved walking through the doors of the library that’s just a block from my house and where I did most of my writing. I loved my three coffee shops where I worked when I wasn’t in the library. I loved adding yet another volume to my tower of happiness-related books. I loved my workday. For me, that was fun.
    As I finished up my month devoted to play, I was struck again by my good fortune in life; I didn’t face an enormous obstacle to happiness. One of my main goals for my happiness project was to prepare myself for adversity, to develop the self-discipline and the habits to deal with a bad thing when it happened, but as I posted to my blog, I worried that people who faced a major happiness trial—such as a serious illness, job loss, divorce, addiction, depression—might be put off. Would they think, “Who is she to talk about happiness when everything in her life is fine?” I posted a few questions to ask readers their views:
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    A re you more likely to think about happiness—and to take action to try to build happiness—when everything in your life is going well, or when you’re facing a catastrophe?
    If you’re facing a catastrophe, does it help to think about taking little, ordinary steps to build happiness (having lunch with a friend, making your bed in the morning, going outside for a quick walk)? Or are modest efforts like that dwarfed by the magnitude of what you’re facing?
    My hope is that the ideas presented in the Happiness Project (book and blog) can help people trying to be happier within their ordinary life, and also help people trying to be happier in the context of a major happiness challenge. Do you think that following these kinds of strategies does help to build happiness?
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    Many readers responded. They seemed to agree that taking steps to be happy—whether in the context of ordinary life or catastrophe—was worth the effort.
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    I think it’s important to recognize those happy moments when they are happening. As one who has struggled with chronic pain, I think it’s a good day if I can get out and have that lunch with a friend or meet a deadline or notice the sunshine. Recognizing happy moments keeps me from being overwhelmed when the pain is too much.
     
    I think you don’t understand what happiness is until you are forced, through adversity, to look for it. I was divorced last year. The anger and sadness in both me and my children has been extreme, one child failed two semesters of school and finally started counseling for depression. Another one has been in trouble twice for alcohol-related problems. We handle things so differently: I work hard to find positive ways of dealing with my anger and sadness rather than just numb the pain…It’s all about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but I do understand happiness begins with my own attitude and how I look at the world…
     
    I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You’ll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You’ll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate small successes, that’s what you’ll do in adversity. But with a correspondingly bigger success at the end.
     
    I started what has amounted to my own happiness project about four years ago, by