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

an ad on the bulletin board in the grocery store. Mywife had been after me since we moved to deal with the junk down there, which was three years ago. I have never been so happy to write a check in my life. It wasn’t even that expensive especially because we ended up selling some stuff we had in storage in the basement.
     
    My Christmas present to myself this year was a few pillows:-). I knew I didn’t like mine, but the chain reaction of how they affect my comfort level-> hours and quality of sleep -> my mood the next day -> my productivity in work was pretty enlightening.
     
    I got a dog. Having a pet turned out to be more expensive than I expected (food, shots, paying a neighbor to take care of her when I travel, and so forth) but it has also been a lot more fun than I expected. I live by myself and having a dog has brought me a huge amount of happiness.
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    For that matter, one of my own favorite “modest splurges” was something that wouldn’t appeal to most people—but for me meant getting my hands on something I’d coveted for years. I called Books of Wonder, a famous children’s bookstore in Manhattan, and ordered the “Wizard’s Super Special,” the complete set of the fifteen Oz books by L. Frank Baum. Two weeks later, I got a huge thrill when I opened the large box. The hardback set had a unified design, with matching spines, gorgeous covers, and the original color illustrations.
    Now, positive psychologists might argue that I’d adapt to my purchase. Soon I’d be accustomed to owning these books, they’d sit on a shelf and gather dust, and I’d be no better off than I was before. I disagree. Because I have a real passion for children’s literature, I knew these books would give me a boost every time I saw them. After all, I keep a big stack of the old, beat-up Cricket magazines I had as a child, and just seeing them on the shelf makes me happy.
    As always, the secret was to “Be Gretchen” and to choose wisely. Whatmakes me happy is to spend money on the things I value—and it takes self-knowledge and discipline to discover what I really want, instead of parroting the desires of other people. One of the purchases that made my father happiest was a pinball machine. He’d played hours of pinball as a boy, and one of his childhood dreams was to have his own so he could play whenever he wanted, for free. This isn’t a purchase that would have made everyone happy, but it made him extremely happy.
    While I was thinking hard about the relationship between money and happiness, I struck up a conversation with a fellow guest at a bridal shower. I told her that I was trying to figure out ways to “Buy some happiness.” (As I explained the issue, it began to dawn on me, dimly, that I might be becoming a happiness bore.)
    She became quite indignant at my suggestion. “That’s so wrong!” she said. “Money can’t buy happiness!”
    “You don’t think so?”
    “I’m the perfect example. I don’t make much money. A few years back, I took my savings and bought a horse. My mother and everyone told me I was crazy. But that horse makes me incredibly happy—even though I end up spending all my extra money on him.”
    “But,” I said, confused, “money did make you happy. It makes you so happy to have a horse!”
    “But I don’t have any money,” she answered. “I spent it all.”
    “Right, because you used it to buy a horse. ”
    She shook her head and gave up on me.
    In some cases, though, when I tried to “Buy some happiness,” it didn’t work. I’d call this the “expensive-gym-membership effect,” after the futile tendency to pay a lot for a gym membership with the thought, “Gosh, this costs so much, I’ll feel like I have to go to the gym!”
    I see the expensive-gym-membership effect when I pay money for something as a way to encourage myself to make time for something fun. For example, I went to three stores to hunt down the combination glue/sealer/ finish Mod Podge, because I wanted to experiment with découpage. I reallywant to do it. But I bought that Mod Podge ages ago, and I’ve never used it. I want to take time for creative projects, but merely spending money on an art supply won’t make it a priority. I have to decide to make time—and apparently I haven’t. (Using Mod Podge can be another resolution for Happiness Project II.) Along the same lines, a workaholic friend of mine bought a fancy new tennis racquet because he wants to play more tennis, but