The Happiness Project

by Gretchen Rubin

  By the end of May, I’d figured out that “fun” falls into three categories: challenging fun, accommodating fun, and relaxing fun.

  Challenging fun is the most rewarding but also the most demanding. It can create frustration, anxiety, and hard work. It often requires errands. It takes time and energy. In the end, however, it pays off with the most satisfying fun.

  Usually less challenging, but still requiring a fair bit of effort, is accommodating fun. A family trip to the playground is accommodating fun. Yes, it’s fun, but I’m really there because my children want to go. Was it Jerry Seinfeld who said, “There’s no such thing as ‘Fun for the whole family’”? Going to a family holiday dinner, even going to dinner and a movie with friends, requires accommodation. It strengthens relationships, it builds memories, it’s fun—but it takes a lot of effort, organization, coordination with other people, and, well, accommodation.

  Relaxing fun is easy. I don’t have to hone skills or take action. There’s very little coordination with other people or preparation involved. Watching TV—the largest consumer of the world’s time after sleeping and work—is relaxing fun.

  Research shows that challenging fun and accommodating fun, over the long term, bring more happiness, because they’re sources of the elements that make people happiest: strong personal bonds, mastery, an atmosphere of growth. Relaxing fun tends to be passive—by design. So if relaxing fun is the least fun kind of fun, why is watching TV so popular? Because although we get more out of challenging fun and accommodating fun, we must also put more into it. It takes energy and forethought.

  The resolutions for this month were a bit of a struggle. I’d expected to find it fun to have fun, to go off the path, to start a collection, and it was fun, but only after I truly forced myself to do these things. I was a bit dismayed to realize how attached I was to my routine, how uninterested I was in trying new things, how much I disliked turning away from my self-assigned reading and writing. Was I really such a dull creature of habit?

  Then I thought—wait. Novelty is stimulating, and it clearly was good for me, from time to time, to do something different. But my efforts had the unexpected benefit of making me realize how much I loved my habits and the familiar stops in my day. The pleasure of doing a thing in the same way, at the same time, every day, and savoring it, is worth noting. As Andy Warhol observed, “Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.” I loved walking through the doors of the library that’s just a block from my house and where I did most of my writing. I loved my three coffee shops where I worked when I wasn’t in the library. I loved adding yet another volume to my tower of happiness-related books. I loved my workday. For me, that was fun.

  As I finished up my month devoted to play, I was struck again by my good fortune in life; I didn’t face an enormous obstacle to happiness. One of my main goals for my happiness project was to prepare myself for adversity, to develop the self-discipline and the habits to deal with a bad thing when it happened, but as I posted to my blog, I worried that people who faced a major happiness trial—such as a serious illness, job loss, divorce, addiction, depression—might be put off. Would they think, “Who is she to talk about happiness when everything in her life is fine?” I posted a few questions to ask readers their views:

  * * *

  Are you more likely to think about happiness—and to take action to try to build happiness—when everything in your life is going well, or when you’re facing a catastrophe?

  If you’re facing a catastrophe, does it help to think about taking little, ordinary steps to build happiness (having lunch with a friend, making your bed in the morning, going outside for a quick walk)? Or are modest efforts like that dwarfed by the magnitude of what you’re facing?

  My hope is that the ideas presented in the Happiness Project (book and blog) can help people trying to be happier within their ordinary life, and also help people trying to be happier in the context of a major happiness challenge. Do you think that following these kinds of strategies does help to build happiness?

  * * *

  Many readers responded. They seemed to agree that taking steps to be happy—whether in the context of ordinary life or catastrophe—was worth the effort.

  * * *

  I think it’s important to recognize those happy moments when they are happening. As one who has struggled with chronic pain, I think it’s a good day if I can get out and have that lunch with a friend or meet a deadline or notice the sunshine. Recognizing happy moments keeps me from being overwhelmed when the pain is too much.

  I think you don’t understand what happiness is until you are forced, through adversity, to look for it. I was divorced last year. The anger and sadness in both me and my children has been extreme, one child failed two semesters of school and finally started counseling for depression. Another one has been in trouble twice for alcohol-related problems. We handle things so differently: I work hard to find positive ways of dealing with my anger and sadness rather than just numb the pain…It’s all about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but I do understand happiness begins with my own attitude and how I look at the world…

  I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You’ll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You’ll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate small successes, that’s what you’ll do in adversity. But with a correspondingly bigger success at the end.

  I started what has amounted to my own happiness project about four years ago, by necessity rather than by choice. When my husband of 30 years died I realized that if I didn’t make an active, conscious effort to figure out how to be happy, it wasn’t going to happen. By this age, almost everyone has given at least some thought to happiness and how to go about achieving it. But in coming to terms with life as it is now, I realized that I wasn’t even entirely certain what the hell happiness *was*.

  I think a real life-shaking catastrophe can provide insights into happiness that you couldn’t have any other way, but the more you know about what happiness really means for you before you come to that point, the better equipped you’ll be to handle it. By all means, work on understanding happiness NOW.

  I have had a difficult time these past few years and happiness was something I needed like water in a desert. I deliberately looked for EVERY LITTLE THING that might lift my mood, anything to get me through. One of the things I found was blogging. I practice yoga daily & meditate, which has provided great peace. I tend a vegetable garden, look after family & pets, cook and search for books I love to read. I make art and keep a journal. On sunny days, I think “great,” a good day to be outdoors and on grey days I think “great,” a good day to be indoors. It’s all in your attitude. I choose to be happy, in spite of whatever drama that is going on in my life.

  I was married a very long time and in all those years life revolved around my husband. Long story short, he dumped me, probably when things got too boring, dunno. I went into a depression for years. Why?? I had no life of my own, I didn’t have the first clue as to who I was or what I wanted. It really never occurred to me in all those years of marriage that I needed to have a little tiny place for me to have my own things going on in life. Before the catastrophe, not after! After was too late. I was waiting to die, but I didn’t die, God isn’t ready for what little there is of me yet. Now, I see that it’s like saving money, you can’t save for when you get laid off, after you get laid off; rather, you have to save while you have a job and the money is still coming in. Life is like that, you have to DO while you are able to think of what you want, what you like, what needs it will fill, how it will enhance your life, how it will help you to maintain you, so that you have some
reserves when crunch time comes.

  For me, when things are going well, and I am happy, I don’t think about happiness too much. It’s when I start to become unhappy or depressed that I concentrate on it more and try to think of ways to improve it.

  I have been through 2 serious bouts of depression in the last 4 years and because I have experienced this in the past I am very aware of the warning signs and try to catch it before it gets too bad. I find that keeping busy, especially seeing other people, is very helpful. It can be tough, as sometimes the last thing you want to do is see people or do ANYTHING at all, but if you can force yourself, you will usually end up having a good time and feeling better for it. The other strategy that certainly works for me although, it can be difficult to implement, is to become aware of your interior monologue and start arguing with it if it gets too negative. When I feel down, then I’ll start thinking how useless I am, and pathetic and how nobody can really like me etc. etc. I find that determinedly interrupting these thoughts and forcing myself to think the opposite—or doing something that prevents thinking, like reading a book or watching a film, can really help avoid the downward spiral. (I admit mentally arguing with your thoughts can feel silly, but it does help!)

  Remembering that joy exists is tough when you’ve been traumatized. Joy is a big concept and utterly unbelievable when we are in the depths of catastrophe. But happiness…happiness is more accessible. We can be miserable and then find ourselves laughing, even if just for a few seconds. It reaffirms the will to live, and from there we can branch out. Happiness, and the belief we have in it, is the foundation for survival. As a survivor of life-threatening trauma, it’s been the small idea of happiness that propelled me toward the larger idea of joy that eventually freed me from complex-PTSD. And now here I am, happy daily and always striving for that joyful moment. It can be done! And your project—anyone’s happiness project—can be a starting point for the long road to recovery.

  I think you can “bank” happiness—that is to say, learn about yourself and what makes you happy while the sailing is smooth. When the waves swell up and get rough, you have the memories of the times you were happy. You’ve been there and done that so you know it’s possible to do it again. It’s a matter of weathering the storm and navigating to your happiness destination. It probably won’t be the same path but it is achievable.

  * * *

  Reading these comments strengthened my conviction that happiness isn’t something we should consider only when life is going well and also isn’t something we should consider only when life is going badly. As Samuel Johnson said, “The business of the wise man is to be happy.” In whatever condition life happens to offer.

  6

  JUNE

  Make Time for Friends

  FRIENDSHIP

  Remember birthdays.

  Be generous.

  Don’t gossip.

  Make three new friends.

  Show up.

  One conclusion was blatantly clear from my happiness research: everyone from contemporary scientists to ancient philosophers agrees that having strong social bonds is probably the most meaningful contributor to happiness.

  The positive-psychology superstars Ed Diener and Martin Seligman cite studies demonstrating that “of 24 character strengths, those that best predict life satisfaction are the interpersonal ones.” Epicurus agreed, albeit in slightly more poetic phraseology: “Of all the things that wisdom provides for living one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.”

  You need close long-term relationships, you need to be able to confide in others, you need to belong. Studies show that if you have five or more friends with whom to discuss an important matter, you’re far more likely to describe yourself as “very happy.” Some researchers argue that over the last twenty years, the number of confidants claimed by the average American has dropped. Perhaps because people move more frequently and work longer hours, they have less time for building friendships. (On the good side, family ties are strengthening.) In fact, if a midlife crisis hits, one of the most common complaints is the lack of true friends.

  At the same time, no matter what they’re doing, people tend to feel happier when they’re with other people. One study showed that whether you are exercising, commuting, or doing housework, everything is more fun in company. This is true not just of extroverts but, perhaps surprisingly, of introverts as well. In fact, researchers reported that out of fifteen daily activities, they found only one during which people were happier alone rather than with other people—and that was praying. To my mind, that isn’t an exception at all. The point of praying is that you’re not talking to yourself.

  Not only does having strong relationships make it far more likely that you take joy in life, but studies show that it also lengthens life (incredibly, even more than stopping smoking), boosts immunity, and cuts the risk of depression. To keep loneliness at bay, you need at least one close relationship with someone in whom you can confide (not just a pal with whom you talk about impersonal subjects, like sports, pop culture, or politics); you also need a relationship network, which helps provide a sense of identity and self-esteem and in which you can give and receive support.

  For June, I focused on my relationships by strengthening old friendships, deepening existing friendships, and making new friends.

  REMEMBER BIRTHDAYS.

  All the happiness experts emphasized the importance of strengthening bonds with friends—but how exactly are you supposed to do that?

  At a bare minimum, you can remember birthdays. I’ve never been good at remembering friends’ birthdays—or, to be more accurate, I never remembered any friend’s birthday (except one friend whose birthday falls the day after mine). Sending out birthday e-mails would ensure that I was in touch with my friends at least once a year. That sounded meager, but the fact is, it would be a vast improvement in many cases.

  Many of my friends were on Facebook, which tracks birthdays, but many weren’t, so I had to send out a bunch of e-mails to ask for birthdays. While I was at it, I decided to update my entire address book and copy the information onto my computer. For years, I’d been adding and crossing out entries in the pages of my Filofax, which were now practically illegible and dangerously irreplaceable.

  Once I started getting replies, I found an Internet site, HappyBirthday.com, that sends out date reminders, and I started the long, tedious process of plugging birth dates into the Web site and typing address information into a Word document. Tackling this nagging task was dull work, but, as happiness theory would predict, completing it gave me a big boost of energy and satisfaction. Having the computerized address list didn’t make me feel closer to anyone, but I think it will in the future, because it will be so much easier to stay close to people now that I have a legible, complete set of contact information.

  When I told a friend about my resolution to send birthday e-mails, he said, “But you should call! A call is so much better.” Along the same lines, when I started sending out “Happy birthday!” messages, I felt that I needed to send a long message if I hadn’t been in contact with a friend for a long time. Then I remembered a Secret of Adulthood (courtesy of Voltaire): “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Fact is, I disliked talking on the phone and knew that I wouldn’t call. Maybe I should, but I wouldn’t. But I’d send an e-mail. And I decided that it was all right to send a very short e-mail. The important thing was to maintain the connection—and if I made the task too onerous, I might not stick with it.

  I used HappyBirthday.com only for birthdays, but a friend told me that he also added significant dates from his children’s lives. “That way I can be reminded of the first date the kids talked, waved bye-bye, or whatever. It’s something nice to think about when I’m away at work.” That struck me as a very happy idea.

  Looking at my completed contacts list made me reflect sadly on some friendships that had faded. My address book held names of people who had once been close
friends—but were no longer. In particular, I thought of a friend from high school. She’d been one grade ahead of me, and we were an archetypal case of the glamorous, hell-raising older girl and her studious, law-abiding, worshipful sidekick.

  Without quite knowing how we’d fallen out of touch, I hadn’t talked to her in more than a decade. I had her name on my list but no current information. I tried to get her phone number or e-mail address through our high school alumni office, but it didn’t have anything. Of course not, that was so typical of her. She has a very common name, so I wasn’t able to find her through an Internet search. After I’d finished my address list, though, I ran into a mutual friend from Kansas City who said that she might be living in New Orleans. That was all I needed finally to track her down. It was funny; after all these years, I still remembered that she was vain about her unusual middle name, and I found her by including the middle initial in my search terms. In these little ways, our childhood selves stay with us.

  I called her at work. She sounded astounded to hear from me—but happy.

  That night we talked for two hours. Hearing her voice brought back a lot of memories I’d forgotten; it reenergized some part of my brain that had been dormant.