I downloaded this book quite awhile ago because it sounded interesting to me and then promptly forgot about it in the busy-ness of everyday life. :) So, when I was looking through my downloads recently I came upon it again and could not stop reading...I LOVED it! I knew it was a book I would reference often so I also went out and bought it so I could easily flip through the pages and find the sections I wanted to read again. AND I even emailed the author to see if she would share her resolutions chart with me and heard back from her the next day with the resolutions chart attached. I have since found out that I'm not as special as I thought I was when she sent it to me, because it is available to all the world on her blog. :)
This author of this book, Gretchen Rubin, although already "happy", spent a year testing the wisdom of the ages around what makes people happy and then wrote this book to share her year and what improved her life or made no difference. She repeatedly states that everyone's own happiness project would be different from hers because we are all uniquely "us" but it was so fun for me to see different perspectives on what can boost our happiness in our everyday life...nothing in here is extreme like moving to another country but it was about becoming more aware of how things affect us. She wrote this book a few years ago and more recently wrote the sequel called, "Happier at Home" which I also loved. It was so inspiring to me about being conscious about everything we do that I have created my own year long happiness project...that is somewhat different from hers and uniquely "me".
There are a couple of key learnings for me so far in my first month of my happiness project that I am thankful for:
1. The idea of "It is easier to do something everyday than every once in awhile." For me this applied to reading the scriptures. (The book is not a religious book, but this is a big part of who I am so it obviously needed to be part of my project.) The idea is that if we do something everyday we will not use the excuse of, "I can do that tomorrow...or next week...etc." and ultimately it never happens because you can always put it off. Because I have made this a daily resolution, it gets done everyday...no putting it off until tomorrow. What's amazing to me is that I had a hard time always fitting this into my day in the past and it truly only happened every once in awhile. Now, it happens everyday and it's easier.
2. The idea of "Making the Positive Argument". This will come in even more handy when it's actually on my resolutions chart during my marriage-focused month, but I've noticed I've started incorporating it into my thinking ever since reading about it. Most times when someone upsets us or makes us angry we start rationalizing in our brains all the reasons why we're justified in feeling upset or angry. (I am a PRO at doing this.) "Making the positive argument" however, is about thinking of the reasons (from the offending persons perspective) why they did what they did. For example, if our spouses aren't home when they say they're going to be from work, instead of thinking about the inconvenience it is on us, think about the project they must be involved in at work, or the traffic they're having to deal with, or their willingness to go off to work each day to provide for the family, etc. Making the positive argument in our own minds beforehand allows us to never have to regret what comes out of our mouths before we know the situation...along with not wasting time stewing over a situation. This can obviously be applied in MANY situations with spouses, kids, friends, co-workers, bosses, etc.
I am thankful I came across this book! I have always considered myself a generally happy person but I love the difference some of these things are making in my life.
*My heart is also heavy for those in Boston and Texas and the events that have taken place in both areas this week. Those people are in my prayers everyday!
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