Happiness Project: Happiness is a Choice

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And if you complain a lot Samuel Johnson "To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.

Get involved in someone else's conversation, rather than just waiting for when you can speak up about your experiences. Being a know-it-all telling lots of anecdotes that show off your knowledge. Let me tell you about mine! I thought it was kind of boring. Looking for ways to contradict what someone says.

Happiness Project: Happiness is a Choice

Goody goody two shoes: Try having a Pollyanna week. You may well not do it perfectly, but it's a great exercise. In many way Pollyanna-ish behaviour is good, and cheers everyone up. View all 20 comments. Aug 19, Sarah rated it did not like it. For fun, someone should do a search through this book to see how many times the phrase "studies show that" actually appears. The entire book reads like a college term project written by a self-absorbed teacher's pet. The author readily admits to being the type of person who always wants a "gold star" for her efforts.

She strikes me as the type of person who plays everything by the book - from graduating from Yale law school to clerking for Justice O'Connor, so it makes sense that she would tac For fun, someone should do a search through this book to see how many times the phrase "studies show that" actually appears. She strikes me as the type of person who plays everything by the book - from graduating from Yale law school to clerking for Justice O'Connor, so it makes sense that she would tackle happiness as just another project to be ticked off the list and approach it from the chart-making, resolution-keeping perspective.

Yet, she seems to yearn for some adventure, which it appears she believes she's at least partially achieved by "discovering what she loves" and making the decision to quit lawyering and become a full-time writer. Isn't that such a crazy and wild thing to do? Personality quibbles aside, I really hated this book. I tried to read it twice. Both times, I was struck by the mechanical tone and formulaic "how tos" of happiness achievement: Go with the flow!

One gets the sense that Ms. Rubin is gallantly trying to break free from her rigid, type-A personality, for which she deserves some credit, but it just comes across as play-acting for the sake of keeping her resolutions I. OK, personality quibbles not aside. Ultimately, she fails to convince me that any of these "how-tos" have anything to do with happiness at all. Rubin's perspective, it appears as though happiness is an relatively achievable goal - something you set your mind to, grit your teeth and, armed with plenty of charts and lists, set out to achieve.

It's pedantry disguised as seeking and true insight. You are the first person in history to both discover the meaning of happiness and achieve it. I won this advance copy book through the Goodreads Giveaway and could not have been more stoked! I am always creating lists and goals and things to improve my life. I feel like books, songs, movies always have a way of finding me when I need them most. I just quit my job because I was way too miserable and I have been home for the past few weeks feeling extremely unhappy and like my life was just miserable.

This book was just the inspiration to want to change my situation and bring about more ha I won this advance copy book through the Goodreads Giveaway and could not have been more stoked! This book was just the inspiration to want to change my situation and bring about more happiness into my life. While I am an adventurous soul and loved reading memoirs by people who go do extreme things to find themselves and change their lives ie Eat, Pray, Love. This is not a luxury I have and I liked Rubin's idea of not wanting to reject her life but wanting to "change her life without changing my life, by finding more happiness in my own kitchen.

Sure, I would love to go gallivanting off to other parts of the world to find myself and make myself happier but that is just not a reality and I'm just not sure it would teach me how to live my normal life. I loved the questions that the author asked of happiness and how she approached what happiness is and if she believed it was possible to make herself happier. I liked that she was honest about really being a happy person in general and admitting that her life has been pretty easy.. She just wanted to see if she could bring more general happiness into her life and, if did disaster did strike, would it be an enduring and embedded type of happiness that would help her through something.

I absolutely loved the setup of each section. It went month by month. She talked about each of the resolutions she made for that month and talked about her struggles and successes. She was often times humorous and also very observant. I loved the research she did pertaining to happiness and how she used these ideas to figure out ways to her own happiness.

I like how she emphasizes that everybody's happiness project would look very unique. Different things make different people happy. I didn't always agree with some of her conclusions with her own resolutions but I appreciated the research she did and that it was HER happiness project with HER own results. I'm always skeptical of "self help" type things or 25 ways to happiness deals. I don't think there is a formula to happiness or peace or success. That is what I liked about Gretchen's book. She wasn't trying to say.. Here is the exact method by which you will be happy!

I was certainly inspired by her happiness project and I am planning on starting my own in January The author has a blog too that is chocked full of great advice and if you go back far enough it shows her journey throughout the happiness project. The blog really shows her actually going through with it. The book is the outcome and the reflection. I actually emailed her to get her resolution chart to see if it's something that might work for me or if I should create my own.

She is extremely gracious and incredibly enthusiastic about inspiring and motivating other people to their own elevated happiness. I'd definitely recommend this book if you are finding yourself increasingly unhappy.. This book got mixed reviews, but I liked it. It was realistic, very readable, and not exploitative of developing cultures like some of these other "Go find yourself " stunt books cough cough Eat,Pray cough cough.

Rubin is up-front about the fact that she comes from a white, upper-middle class, happily-married, securely employed New York lifestyle that makes it seem a bit narcissistic for her to go out searching for yet more happiness when she has so many advantages compared to so many other peo This book got mixed reviews, but I liked it. Rubin is up-front about the fact that she comes from a white, upper-middle class, happily-married, securely employed New York lifestyle that makes it seem a bit narcissistic for her to go out searching for yet more happiness when she has so many advantages compared to so many other people.

And yet, I found myself agreeing with her. For example, why is it that so often people assume that if you're a happy positive person you're automatically less intelligent? This will be the last time I make a disclaimer at work for being addicted to fantasy with elves and dragons and trashy paranormal romances! I am a university English professor and I have a masters' degree and yeah, the classics are great but I like what I like, and will continue to recommend it to my students along with Hemingway and Salinger and the Bronte sisters.

I do not intend to follow all of Rubin's suggestions. I refuse to accept, for example, that as a mother it is MY job to "be a treasure-house of happy memories. My Self would rather wake up late on Christmas morning to find that the husband and kids got up early and decorated the tree. I highly recommend this book. The writer can actually write, and all of us can find some useful suggestions or at least food for thought here.

View all 10 comments. Jul 24, Erin rated it it was amazing Shelves: Totally want to start my Happiness Project. Gretchen Rubin, happily married mother of 2, had a realization while sitting on a bus that she was letting her life pass her by without fully appreciating it. Being a writer, she decided to research the origins, psychology and elements of happiness and develop her own Happiness Project, a month experiment each month around a theme like "love", "work" "energy", etc with carefully measured goals and resolutions to see if she cou Inspiring!

Being a writer, she decided to research the origins, psychology and elements of happiness and develop her own Happiness Project, a month experiment each month around a theme like "love", "work" "energy", etc with carefully measured goals and resolutions to see if she could be a happier person, better wife, better mother, better woman.

I enjoy self-help stuff when it doesn't sound too preachy, and Rubin finds a really nice tone to her book that made it compelling, human, not preachy, and honestly kind of charming. She is pretty honest and open about when things worked and when things didn't quite, the fact that she can be kind of a pill I can relate!

I think most people can relate to wanting to do new year's resolutions, but never holding on to them, and she counters that by using her resolution chart and holding herself accountable. I think what I liked most about it was that she had to learn to "Stay Gretchen" some things work for others and not for you, and that's ok , and that she wanted to change her life without changing her life she couldn't move to Africa, for example, but wanted to make small, manageable changes she could keep the rest of her life. That spoke to me--I don't know that I'll stay where I am forever, but I think I'll be where I am at least for another year, and want to know that I've really started to pay attention to where I am right now and made a few positive changes.

She is quite honest about how this could sound self-absorbed or self-indulgent, but she disagrees in general and believes backing that up with research that happier people are more productive, more generous, more thoughtful, etc. I'm definitely intrigued and inspired to plan my own Happiness Project. More info on her blog here: This book will be more useful if read as a Self-help book, and not a memoir. If you are willing to take the blame, people will give you responsibilities.

It is easy to be heavy, hard to be light. Do good, feel good ; feel good, do good. Jan 07, Jennifer rated it it was ok. I used to pride myself on finishing every book I started -- no longer. I read it all the way through and wish that I had actually "Been Gretchen" for a brief moment. I really liked the concept of the book and of the project; however, I found it to be less inspiring and much more annoying than I would expect a book like "I did, however, vow to stop reading books that I didn't enjoy.

I really liked the concept of the book and of the project; however, I found it to be less inspiring and much more annoying than I would expect a book like this to be. From the constant, uncited references to "resources" to the quotes from obscure researchers, from the reader responses to the author's blog to the supposed word-for-word conversations between the author and others in her book, I found the book to have a very contrived feeling that left me rolling my eyes and sighing with irritation. I felt the author contradicted herself continually throughout the book, used references to support her opinions NOT research while ignoring those that she didn't agree with, all to make a point Yes, I'd like to be happier in my life.

Yes, I think Rubin had some good ideas on how to do that although how original those ideas are is questionable. No, I don't think reading her book gave me any more insight into being a happier person than what my own common sense has told me over the years. Instead, I would go so far as to say that this book likely made my life a little less happy because I don't find reading someone's grumbling and whining all under the guise of "maximizing happiness" to be particularly uplifting.

Jan 08, Gina rated it it was ok. Natasha's review of this book is perfect.

I think Natasha should re-write The Happiness Project and then it will truly be a project about happiness. I felt that I knew what the book was about and that I could have written it but now that it was written by someone else, my idea for a self-help book was taken. I said I was "depressed" Natasha's review of this book is perfect. I said I was "depressed" as a humourous play upon the title of the book -- it seems counter-intuitive that a book about happiness would make someone depressed, right?

Except now that I have finished reading the book, the joke's on me: I actually am depressed about it. It was a sad read, in parts, because it was abundantly clear to me that the author doesn't really understand the secret of happiness. I don't feel like the book came to any conclusions on how to be happy in a lasting way. I think the book managed to get published because she was already a published author, so she had connections, and because the publishers were cashing in on what author Gretchen Rubin mentions as "stunt genre journalism", in this case, doing something for a year and then writing about it.

Before I delve into my criticisms, the book was not without merit. There are little nuggets of inspiration, like when Gretchen drastically improves her drawing ability by taking a class that gave her profound anxiety. I would be surprised if anyone could read The Happiness Project without feeling inspired to go outside her comfort zone and do something new.

But the inspiration ended there. Basically, Gretchen wants to be happier. Her husband doesn't understand why she wants to be happier because she seems happy to him but it becomes clear before long, as she describes many insufferable habits and traits of her own, that she's not really happy. So, instead of digging deep, getting at the root of her issues, she makes monthly theme resolutions, travelling the surface streets of why she's obnoxious, putting a superficial band-aid on her flaws. This is not a book to read if you're looking to identify with someone else's unhappiness to have a "light bulb moment" about your own, unless you really are so uncomplicated and flawless that your only source of unhappiness is not enough extra-curricular busyness in your life, in which case you don't need to read a book to solve that problem.

If she were relaying her poor behaviour so that she could follow it up with an explanation of the root reason for her behaviour and what she realised about herself and how that realisation changed her, then this book would be a worthwhile pursuit. Instead, it reads like a confessional journal, a list of sins and the penance that followed, and the lack of profundity made me sad.

I felt uncomfortable for her knowing that this self-flagellation was not bringing her any lasting insight into why she was unhappy with herself. For example, on page she starts, " I realized I had one particular characteristic that I urgently needed to control: I was too belligerent. The minute someone made a statement, I looked for ways to contradict it.

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When someone happened to say to me, 'Over the next fifty years, it's the relationship with China that will be most important to the United States,' I started searching my mind to think of counterexamples. I know very little about the subject. She describes herself as a "know-it-all" who strives to drop literary observations to appear intelligent, a "topper" who tops other people's stories with a bigger and better one, and a "deflater" who finds something negative to say about things that other people were excited about.

On page she describes the difficulty she had with trying to squelch her inclinations, "Giving positive reviews requires humility. I have to admit, I missed the feelings of superiority that I got from using puncturing humor, sarcasm, ironic asides, cynical comments, and cutting remarks. A willingness to be pleased requires modesty and even innocence -- easy to deride as mawkish and sentimental.

He brings the towel and she says, "Folks, that was not the fastest action we could have had. Answering the whys proves difficult for her throughout the book. She's able to narrow behaviour down as being prideful and I admire her for her frankness but she doesn't analyse the source of the pride. So, without really knowing or divulging the source of her problems, she decides that to fix these character flaws she will give up drinking because it enables her belligerence, and she will force herself to be like Pollyanna for a week, including wearing a bracelet to remind her to remember about "Pollyanna Week".

Pollyanna Week succeeds in cutting down her negative comments for that week and has "lasting effects" later, which she doesn't describe. I immediately noted the irony in going about being less negative by It's like trying to lose weight by saying, "I hate being fat. I'm going to stop being fat," instead of "I miss feeling thin and I'm going to be thin again. Everyone is negative sometimes. We don't need to zip our mouths and be as perfect as impossible.

We just need to be more positive than negative. If we're enthusiastic a lot of the time, people will forgive us for being critical some of the time. If we are frequently celebratory of our friends' successes and interests, people will better tolerate when we indulge in self-absorption for a while. Why didn't she just work on being more loving? Because, by her own assertion, it was "vague" as well as being harder to fake.

Negative comments were easier for her to spot and measure. It's easier to stop doing something bad than to start doing something good, but As well, giving up drinking and getting more sleep is great, but not everyone who drinks or is tired is belligerent. Why is she this way under the influence when some other people are silly and more gregarious when they're boozy or tired? She doesn't ask that question. It seems to me that the source of many of her problems is basic insecurity. She resolves early on to "Be Gretchen" and throughout the book when she runs up against insecurities, the insecurities are solved by her mantra to "Be Gretchen".

So, the lesson here for the reader, when having troubles with insecurities: Why didn't you think of that, Reader? At one point and I can't find the page she asks "Why? Finally, she admits that her Happiness Project made her more judgmental of others for not being happy. I wonder if she would have had the discipline to keep up with all her resolutions, if she would have challenged herself to take a drawing class that gave her panicky anxiety if she was not doing it for book fodder.

Without the resolutions, there would be no story to tell, really, so it seems that the book is in existence for the book's sake. The strange thing is that she's obviously a very intelligent woman who seems introspective enough that I do believe she is capable of getting to the heart of the matter of her problems, of asking the important questions and getting real answers. I just don't understand why she didn't do it for the book. I guess it just wasn't the style of book she was looking to write or HarperCollins was looking to publish? Further, what made me sad was reading of Gretchen's struggle to love herself and others in a pure, unshakable way that comes from God and comes from a deep-seated knowledge of the value of another soul.

She describes her life as having been fairly easy, her childhood being happy, and she even sounds insecure about that in about three places where she wishes she had hardship to draw on to give herself "legitimacy". I suspect that her happy upbringing is why she struggles to have true compassion for others without having to talk herself into it so much. Compassion is hard to come by without experience.

It's easy to have an intellectual awareness of the need to cut people some slack, it's easy to repeat to one's self: On page she said, "Along with a more humorous attitude, I wanted to be kinder. I'd considered kindness a respectable but bland virtue That really threw me. How can kindness ever be bland as an idea or a manifestation?

What strategies would remind me to act with loving-kindness in my ordinary day? Perhaps mere politeness wouldn't engender loving-kindness in me, but acting politely would at least give me the appearance of possessing that quality -- and perhaps appearance would turn into reality. The entire book is sprinkled with talk of "strategies", with wishful thinking, with "perhaps"s and "maybe"s and "acting". Is it possible that she does not see that true happiness does not come from acting kind but being kind?

On page she says, " Do good, feel good; feel good, do good. And besides that, how is this a revelation worth publishing a book about? Hey, this just in folks: If you keep up resolutions for things you know you should do, it will make you happier. So, keep up your resolutions, okay? Tell us something we don't know, right?

Like, how to keep those resolutions without merely gritting our teeth and digging our heels in. I know that if I would be kinder to Jim-Bob that I would feel better and that feeling better would then make it easier for me to be kinder to Jim-Bob. But how do I get the momentum to do something I don't really want to do, and won't he sense the falseness anyway? This is why she finds it so easy to judge other people's behaviours -- she doesn't focus on the heart, she focuses on the outward appearance. If it's so easy for her to change her behaviour um, easy because she has to or she doesn't have book fodder , then other people should be able to as well.

This was the only preconceived expectation I had when starting this book -- that she would strive to change herself by merely digging her feet in and, with sheer willpower, change her habits. I was otherwise expecting to enjoy this book. I am blown away by its superficiality and its inability to inspire me or to change anyone in a profound, lasting way.

Its methodical layout, its quotes from philosophers, its articulate writing, and its New York Times bestseller's list placement does not trick me into thinking it's a life-changing book. The only reason it changed Gretchen's life was because she was writing a book. It serves as more of a mostly humour-less journal, really. It couldn't even be categorised under "self-help". I find it profound that in the last chapter she asks her husband if her happiness project has made him happier at all. Maybe he wasn't happier because he was already happy. Maybe he was happy being the kind of man who doesn't reply to her emails.

Maybe he was happy not doing the things that would make her happier if he would just do them.

Happiness Project: Happiness is a Choice by Jenna James

Maybe he was happy in his imperfections Maybe it's just Gretchen who thinks that happiness can be found in resolutions, in gold stars, in being likable. I felt like I was reading my own journey to discovering the secret to happiness, from when I was in my early 20's. At one point I actually thought it would be a good idea to make a list of all my negative qualities and all the bad things I did.

Why I thought this would be beneficial escapes my recollection. And maybe it's this reminder that made me so sad.

“Happiness is a Choice.” True or False? Plus the Weekly video.

Maybe if I didn't identify with what I see as her confusion, I wouldn't even notice it. I think it's the idea of happiness that attracts people enough to make this a best-selling book. Bite-sized blog posts about the topic are interesting to most of us, but I expected a book to be more substantial. Needless to say, I am no longer bummed out that someone else wrote my book.

The Happiness Project has made it easier for me to write what I need to write about, to fill in the gaps, to explore the human psyche, as pretentious as that sounds. What makes Tiger Woods qualified to teach about golf is that he's good at golf. Happiness Project explains that happiness is a choice; that it's a journey of self discovery, not a destination.

If you are worried about some future destination, then you're not likely to be living in the present, which is where you experience happiness. The book describes various factors that contribute to happiness and lists a number of activities that will promote the proper attitude that ultimately helps you experience happiness. Happiness Project will encourage you to keep on track in your pursuit of happiness. I also liked the way the book was structured. You circle the different aspect of happiness and I couldn't help but think about my own habits of happiness.

The big take away: Happiness is a choice. What the book does well is it help you to find the core of your happiness so that it's available to you when you need it. All in all, a great find for the price. I doubt you'll find another book on the topic and get the same value for the price. It's a real question, and this book answers it. The thing is, happiness is a choice. A state of mind, and that takes work. But the good news is, as the book explains, it's in your hands. The author then goes on to explain just what you can do to make that happen.

It's clear, concrete advice on the steps and choices we must make to be happy. Don't try this book until you're really ready to make a difference in your life, because it really is all about how you choose to believe and see what happens to you. If you are, though, the book sets it all out beautifully and easily. All you have to do is follow her steps. How you live your life determines your happiness, after all.

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One person found this helpful. The book title says it all - happiness is not something that you possess like you possess a house, it is something that needs to be acquired every day. The author defines what happiness is and explains how happiness can be brought into your life. I like most the last section of the book with lots of examples of what you can do to be happy right now. Tiny book with not much information. This book is a great reminder of the fact that we make our lives what we want it to be. In this book, Happiness project, you will discover some techniques you can start applying to your everyday living to ensure you are happy in order to enjoy the best that life has to offer.

In all, I enjoyed reading such a positive book. A lovely reminder that happiness is a mind set, a choice that comes from within, an attitude of love that extends outward, not the other way 'round. Good action steps are given to stay on track and feeling good. I'd personally like to see illustrations with more esthetic impact and larger print if print on the graphics is used. See all 25 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.

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