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

of tranquility and accomplishment. Voilà! A complaint turned into thankfulness.
    I’d been spending a lot of time thinking about trying to be more grateful. Then one hot Sunday afternoon, when we were at the pool with Jamie’s parents, Eliza said to me, “You know what I was just thinking? ‘I’m in the pool, it’s summer, I’m seven years old, I’m wearing a very cute bathing suit, and my grandmother is asking me if I want anything to eat or drink.’” By which she meant: Life doesn’t get better than this.
    “I know exactly what you mean,” I replied.
    IMITATE A SPIRITUAL MASTER.
    One of the most universal spiritual practices is the imitation of a spiritual master as a way to gain understanding and discipline. Christians, for example, study Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ and ask, “What would Jesus do?” In the secular world, I believe, people often read biographies for spiritual reasons: they want to study and learn from the example of great lives, whether those of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Oprah Winfrey, or Warren Buffett. That desire had certainly been one of the reasons why I’d wanted to write biographies myself. Now I decided to study and imitate a new spiritual master—but whom? I asked blog readers what spiritual masters they followed.
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    I greatly admire & have learned a lot from 2 Zen teachers (although that’s not a tradition I practice). Norman Fischer is a person of wisdom, patience & common sense. My favorite Jewish Zen grandmother (not mine), a woman of great wisdom, eloquence and candor, is Sylvia Boorstein. And lastly, from my own tradition, Rabbi Charles Kroloff.
     
    Vincent Van Gogh. I know, I know, how could someone whose legacy involves cutting off his ear be a spiritual mentor? (Well, first of all, he didn’t really cut off his ear…) All you have to do is read his collected letters, DEAR THEO, to see how spiritual Van Gogh was, and also, to gain inspiration from the life, thoughts, ideas, philosophies, and perseverance of this incredibly talented man, both in the art of painting, and also in the art of transcendence, self-empowerment, and self-belief.
     
    Charles Darwin. Fantastically dedicated to finding out why the natural world looked the way it does; he didn’t teach, he showed. His insights were down to long deep thought and lots and lots of hard work. There are several very good biographies that tell of his unexceptional childhood, his voyage on the Beagle, and how he deliberately chose to earn scientific respectability before he published his world-shaking ideas, backed by huge amounts of examples. It turns out that he was a fairly nice gentle man too. Anyone that looks that clearly at the world merits profound respect.
     
    Anne Lamott because she is so honest and Rabbi Wayne Dosick even though I’m not Jewish.
     
    Two that come to mind: Dr. Andrew Weil, an integrative medicine practitioner and author of many books on the subject. He discusses how people can feel better mentally, physically, and spiritually and his advice always resonates with me. Another is Natalie Goldberg, author of the popular writing book, Writing Down the Bones . It’s a zen approach to writing, but as she points out, her advice can really apply to many things. To me, what’s central to her ideas is self-forgiveness.
     
    Actually, I would name the natural world as a spiritual teacher (I don’t like the term “master”). Western culture assumes that only a human canteach spirituality, but in Indigenous worldview, any creature, any natural element can be a teacher. We can learn a lot if we learn to listen to and observe the natural world.
     
    Viktor Frankl.
     
    I’m not sure I’ve found a spiritual master, though the poetry and passion of Saint Paul have captivated me. My husband finds inspiration in the life of George Orwell.
     
    The Dalai Lama. Just seeing a photo of him makes me happy. I never considered imitating him, though. Food for thought.
     
    I’ve picked one and plan to learn more about his fascinating life. He’s none other than one of our founding fathers—Ben Franklin. I just read the Wikipedia on him and it states—“A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman and diplomat.” I do remember reading that he did all these things but to this day I still can’t figure out how. I have to do more research here.
     
    Lama Norlha