Happiness Project - The Days are long but the years are short.

Literally minutes ago, I finished the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  It is basically a manifesto about the author who created a year resolutions chart, and planned new resolutions to try to complete each month.  For an example, January was dedicated to boosting her energy.  Gretchen made sure to sleep more, exercise better, and to stop eating fake foods as well as to spend more money on healthy foods.  The memoir was fascinating but also interesting to see how hard and unscientific it really is to measure happiness.  Everyone defines happiness differently and everyone has different things in life that make them happy.  An interesting point she came across was to do activities she found fun.  In the past, she was participating in activities because she thought that they were the activities that other people found to be fun.  An ubber dorky thing that she found fun was reading children and teen literature.  Gretchen started a teenage literature fiction book club with her friends and fellow authors who also enjoyed doing the same thing.  I thought this was great because even though she felt embarrassed by her guilty obsession, it was still something she enjoyed doing.  I know we can all relate with this.  I CAN relate to this.  This example is proof that happiness and fun mean different things for different people.

During the course of the book and year, she found more ways to be light hearted, to laugh at herself, to be more kind, and to be less negative.  Because she felt happy she was happy.  Gretchen even at times had to push herself to laugh more or be more kind and it became contagious to herself and the others around her.  Ultimately, by spreading joy to others she was spreading joy to herself.  One of the quotes that resonated with my life and it being the year before I will approach 30 years of age is "The days are long, and the years are short."  My days right now feel very long but I know the end of this year is already approaching fast.  I cannot believe it's already February but because of school and work, my mind is working in overdrive and working more hours a day than it is use to.  I'm not sure if it's ever going to adjust :)

Gretchen created a valuable list of Happiness Tips she learned during her project.  They are as follows:

• To be happy, you need to consider feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
• One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• The days are long, but the years are short.
• You're not happy unless you think you are happy.
• Your body matters.
• Happiness is other people.
• Think about yourself so you can forget yourself.
• It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.
• What's fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa.
• Best is good, better is best.
• Outer order contributes to inner calm.
• Happiness comes from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have.
• You can choose to do, but you can't choose what you like to do.
• There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.
• You manage what you measure.
• Loving actions inspire loving feelings.
• The opposite of a great truth is also true.

I feel that for the most part, I'm a really happy person.  I'm content with who I am and have tried to be happy even when faced with unhappy situations.  Life is short and it is too short to be angry and unhappy.  With so much beauty in the world around us, it can be easily forgotten.


She has a website to go to if you want to create your own happiness toolbox/resolution chart:
www.happinessprojecttoolbox.com  She also has a blog that people can subscribe too.

I feel like I sound like I'm one of her endorsers!! :P  When time approaches, I think it would be fun to do my own happiness project.  I think everyone could always use a dose of happiness in their lives!