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 [ハードカバー]

This book is part memoir, part thinking person's self-help book. I like the fact that it draws not only on recent research in the new field of positive psychology, such as the work of Martin Seligman, but on the wisdom of thinkers as disparate as Samuel Butler and the ancient Stoic philosopher, Seneca. Many wonderful and wise quotations are included in the text. Gretchen Rubin has done a lot of research and reading, and distilled it all here, attempting to answer some vital questions. Is it possible to become a happier person? Is happiness a meaningful and worthwhile goal? She comes to the conclusion that while we may have a happiness set point, and a great deal of our mood is--researchers believe-- determined by heredity (50% or so), to some degree it is under own control (perhaps 30%). It may seem that someone who is not suffering from a painful mood disorder should be focused on other (more worthwhile?) goals than mood elevation. But happiness, after all, is something just about every human being wants, the goal that motivates much of our day to day striving. And rather than suggesting a life of self-centered hedonism, research indicates that the very factors that make for a meaningful life--good relationships, acting in a loving and generous way, engaging creatively with the world--contribute to happiness.

Will revamping your life and taking a systematic approach to seeking happiness work? Research indicates that it may. "I really am happier," says Rubin after a year of following through on her own personal happiness plan. She goes into enough specific detail here about how she got to her more happy state that I have no trouble believing her.

Very responsibly, Rubin points out that her intent is to help people who are well become happier, not to treat a medical condition, i.e., depression. I can imagine her book, however, being an aid for those who are mildly depressed, perhaps as an adjunct to medical treatment, though perhaps they need to be a bit easy on themselves and not follow the plan in a perfectionist, pressured way.

I'm with Rubin when she says that even though we are all very different, learning about someone else's successes and failures can be a better catalyst for change than studying ideas in the abstract. She is generous about revealing the details of her own life--her own "happiness project." What is most transferable is not the specifics--particular actions she decided to experiment with in order to become more happy--but the idea of identifying potential sources of joy, designing steps to take to become happier, making monthly resolutions, carrying through and being accountable--i.e., quantifying the results. The average reader is not going to be as thorough and focused as Rubin was--but in my view that does not negate the value of this book. I'm into progress, I guess, and I believe that even a couple of changes modeled on the plan could make a difference in people's lives.

The book is written in an open, engaging, often humorous style. There is no posturing--Rubin is if anything self-deprecating-- but the writing crackles with intelligence. I found the THE HAPPINESS PROJECT a pleasure to read, and I can imagine people reading it with enjoyment even if they are already happy as clams and have no desire to get with the program. Rubin includes a specific guide for those who want to construct their own happiness plans, and also directs the reader to tools on her web site--nice helpful touches. All in all, a terrific book.

I was torn between giving this book 2 stars and 4 stars (yes, I realize the compromise would've been to give it 3 stars, but that didn't seem to say much, really), because there are some real clunkers and some real gems here. But in the end, I liked what Rubin was trying to do, and I liked how she wrote about it. Rubin herself is pretty likeable and interesting--I wouldn't mind having a cup of coffee with her. Unlike a lot of self-help books, this book focuses on helping one particular self--the author. Rubin wanted to see if she could make her already-pretty-good life even better by trying a rather scattershot assortment of advice, focusing on one area of her life per month. Perhaps a better title for the book may have been "Gretchen's Happiness Project" but I suspect a title like that wouldn't fly off the shelves. But that is in large part her point: what makes one person happy may make another quite miserable. If you're struggling to figure out how to make your life happier, reading Rubin's book could either be a cautionary tale of what wouldn't work for your (quite useful information, actually), or a handy how-to guide that really could make you happier. I feel it's a book worth taking a chance on regardless.

Why this could've been a two-star book: the author sounds whiny and overprivileged in many places, especially when she thinks she deserves praise for something. She does, in fact, realize that this is a flaw in her, and to her credit, takes steps to change that. The book skips around a bit, too, especially when it comes to mentions of a certain saint. This saint is mentioned throughout the book, but no background on her (she seems to be a less-well-known saint, at least I had never heard of her) is given until the book is almost over, so it was really hard to see how these random quotes from this person fit without knowing anything about her. After reading about the saint, I can understand why the author liked her--knowing that upfront would've been very helpful. The thing that drove me the most crazy about this book was the insistence that introverts can be made more happy if they are around people. While there may be some backing for this (I've never seen any studies that say this, and none are cited here, just mentions that "research shows that. . . "), I don't find that to be at all true, and it struck me as a rather typical thing for an extrovert to claim. I'm not saying all introverts should or want to be hermits, but acknowledging that social interaction is actually very draining for introverts would've been welcome, and more true to the book's dictate to "be yourself."

IN the end, in the spirit of happiness, I gave the book 4 stars. There isn't really anything earth shattering or new here. But I did laugh in several places, and enjoyed reading it despite its flaws.

I don't want to belittle anyone else's experience with this book, but for me these "happiness" ideas are concepts that have been rehashed over and over again in a zillion self-help books and articles.

For example, her relationship epiphany seems to boil down to "you can't change your partner, you can only change yourself." Really? This fact somehow escaped her? Because it seems to me to be the point of pretty much every relationship article that has ever been written.

In another essay, she wracks her brain to think of how on earth she might store all her children's cards, photos, and other paper goods. What to do? Stacks aren't working! Surely there must be some way of filing paper goods away in some kind of storage device...then it hits her: FILE BOXES! Are you freaking kidding me? How does someone get this far in life without having ever heard of organizing papers into files?

There are other such oddities that make me wonder if this woman and I are living on the same planet, such as when she decides that collecting something might make her happy but can't think of anything to collect. Is it me? Does everyone else begin collections by consciously deciding that they need one, then having to try and think up something to collect? Maybe it is me. I just thought that sort of thing tends to happen more organically.

These are just examples, I don't want to belabor the point by stating every single thing that made me roll my eyes throughout the book. There seemed to be something in every single chapter.

She's really not a bad writer and has a nice conversational style, which makes it regrettable that she uses nearly one quarter of the book to share anonymous comments that internet users have left on her blog. That was a bit off-putting for me. A few random insights from others sprinkled in here and there wouldn't be so bad, but there are a LOT, which just seems like a lazy way to fill pages.

If you are looking to start your own Happiness Project and need some ideas of where to begin, perhaps this book will give you some ideas. For me, I've read it all before - maybe I already did my own project and just didn't realize it.