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

and the things it can purchase, it’s practically impossible to make generalizations. Take my blender. When I replaced our leaky blender, I splurged and bought a very expensive, very powerful blender. For me, because I make smoothies every day, this blender is a daily joy. For a person who never cooks, a fancy blender would be nothing but a means of conspicuous consumption; he’d never give it another thought after buying it, and it wouldn’t add to his happiness. If money is to enhance your happiness, it must be used to support aspects of life that themselves bring happiness to you.
    Money. It’s a good servant but a bad master.
    It was during this month, in the midst of trying to understand the mysteries of money, that I had a bout of happiness project despair.
    It had been a horrible Saturday morning. We were all in bad moods. Jamie had let me sleep late, which was nice, but my morning went downhill from the moment I emerged from the bedroom. After I’d had a cup of coffee, he asked if he could go to the gym, and I said yes—but I was simmering with resentment. Once he left, Eliza and Eleanor played nicely together for about five minutes, then started poking, teasing, and yelling.
    At the nadir, Eleanor was throwing a tantrum—lying on the floor, kicking her feet, beating her fists against the floor, and shrieking. Why?“Eliza looked at me!” Eliza joined in, sobbing, “It’s not my fault! I hate it when she cries!”
    All my happiness project resolutions started flashing through my mind, but I didn’t want to “Sing in the morning” or “Take time to be silly” or “Give proofs of love.” I wanted someone to worry about making me feel better. I’d been trying so hard to keep my resolutions, but was it working? No. Nothing about me had changed. But if I abandoned my resolutions, what were my options? I could sit on the floor and start howling. I could walk away from the girls, get into bed, and read a book. But would I be happier if I did? No.
    Minutes passed, and none of us seemed able to move. I was furious at Jamie for being at the gym. Eleanor kept crying, Eliza kept crying, I stood in the doorway.
    “This is ridiculous!” I yelled. “Both of you, stop it! You’re crying about nothing!” Eleanor cried harder, Eliza cried harder. I fought back the urge to smack each of them.
    “Don’t yell at me!” Eliza wailed. “It’s not my fault!” Eleanor rotated her body on the floor so she could start kicking the walls instead.
    I had to do something. It took every ounce of moral strength that I possessed to say, “Crying makes a person thirsty. I’m going to get you each a glass of water.” (Both girls love to drink water.)
    I went to the kitchen. First I opened a can of Diet Coke for myself; then I poured two glasses of water. I took a deep breath and tried to sound cheerful. “Who’s thirsty? Does anyone want some almonds?” I crossed my fingers.
    Eliza and Eleanor straggled into the kitchen, sniffling melodramatically. They each took a drink of water and a few almonds. Then they sat down and drank more water and ate more almonds. Suddenly the mood lightened a bit.
    “Hey,” I said to Eliza, “did you eat much breakfast?”
    “No,” she said. “We started playing with the My Little Ponies.”
    “Note to self,” I said, “don’t let you two get too hungry.” I started laughing hysterically, and the girls stared at me as they munched away.
    That bad moment passed, but the rest of the day was hardly better. Eliza and Eleanor kept squabbling, Jamie and I kept bickering. Everybody was getting on my nerves.
    That afternoon, while I was trying to prod the girls into tidying up the dozens of crayons that they’d scattered over the kitchen floor, I suddenly noticed that Jamie had vanished. “Jamie!” I yelled a few times, then went to hunt him down. I was enraged to find him fast asleep in the flying-Superman position on our bed. My scorekeeping kept running through my head: I got to sleep late, he got to go the gym, why did he get to take a nap, too? What was I going to get in return? “Remember,” my conscience whispered, “no calculation.” I ignored it.
    My happiness project was making me feel worse, not better. I was acutely aware of all the mistakes I was making and the steps I could be taking—but I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t. To hell with the resolutions. Why was I even bothering with the resolutions? Many of them were actually directed at making other people