Last week, I shared my personal commandments inspired by Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. With the same enthusiasm I felt last week, I continued reading and finished up the book this past weekend.
In The Happiness Project, Rubin takes you on her organized and methodical journey of spending a year trying to add more happiness to her life. My quick assessment of The Happiness Project, now that I've finished it, is that it can become an immensely helpful springboard for a happiness project of your own or even just a tool for adding simple practices of encouraging more happiness in your day.
I don't gravitate toward this genre and have never read a self-help book before. But The Happiness Project seems to expand the genre by coming across more as a memoir of a year in the author's life than explicit instructions on what you are doing right or wrong. Rubin does not claim to be a happiness expert in your life, though she does reference happiness studies and quotes, and often reflects that happiness is a very personal matter with personal choices.
By establishing this tone, the reader is able to take an outsider's view and decide what, if anything, they might want to incorporate or fine-tune for their own happiness. I did not find the author preachy, just honest and educated, and sometimes humorous, too. Other readers may find Rubin too neurotic or too self-involved, but this wasn't an issue for me because I considered that this whole book was about her year trying to add happiness to her own life -- of course it's all about Rubin's thoughts, actions and feelings.
Over the year, Rubin takes each month to focus on a specific area in her life: for example, February was "marriage" and June was "friendship." Then within each area of her life, she defines specific and measurable goals, like "fight right" or "be generous." Some chapters spoke to me more than others, and I imagine that will be a typical reaction for readers depending on your own life circumstances.
Rubin shares at the beginning of the book that she is not depressed and that there is already a good amount of happiness in her life. She is married, well-off financially, with two healthy children, a beautiful New York City apartment, a law degree and a best-selling writing career. She did not survive an illness, go through a divorce, lose a close family member or get fired from her job. And she wants to be happier. If you find that annoying already, you will likely not enjoy this book. But I think her circumstances speak to the fact that what you have doesn't automatically make you happier and that many of us ordinary people (if you can call her ordinary) could use a little boost of joy.
I'm glad I read this book and am still feeling very inspired to examine my own life and my personal opportunities for greater happiness. I think this is a book that deserves re-reading because it is packed with ideas, quotes and inspiration. I wish I had taken notes the first time-around, but I think I'll enjoy a second reading and that doing so will help me to further organize my thoughts. This is a book I plan to save and revist again over the years.
In The Happiness Project, Rubin takes you on her organized and methodical journey of spending a year trying to add more happiness to her life. My quick assessment of The Happiness Project, now that I've finished it, is that it can become an immensely helpful springboard for a happiness project of your own or even just a tool for adding simple practices of encouraging more happiness in your day.
I don't gravitate toward this genre and have never read a self-help book before. But The Happiness Project seems to expand the genre by coming across more as a memoir of a year in the author's life than explicit instructions on what you are doing right or wrong. Rubin does not claim to be a happiness expert in your life, though she does reference happiness studies and quotes, and often reflects that happiness is a very personal matter with personal choices.
By establishing this tone, the reader is able to take an outsider's view and decide what, if anything, they might want to incorporate or fine-tune for their own happiness. I did not find the author preachy, just honest and educated, and sometimes humorous, too. Other readers may find Rubin too neurotic or too self-involved, but this wasn't an issue for me because I considered that this whole book was about her year trying to add happiness to her own life -- of course it's all about Rubin's thoughts, actions and feelings.
Over the year, Rubin takes each month to focus on a specific area in her life: for example, February was "marriage" and June was "friendship." Then within each area of her life, she defines specific and measurable goals, like "fight right" or "be generous." Some chapters spoke to me more than others, and I imagine that will be a typical reaction for readers depending on your own life circumstances.
Rubin shares at the beginning of the book that she is not depressed and that there is already a good amount of happiness in her life. She is married, well-off financially, with two healthy children, a beautiful New York City apartment, a law degree and a best-selling writing career. She did not survive an illness, go through a divorce, lose a close family member or get fired from her job. And she wants to be happier. If you find that annoying already, you will likely not enjoy this book. But I think her circumstances speak to the fact that what you have doesn't automatically make you happier and that many of us ordinary people (if you can call her ordinary) could use a little boost of joy.
I'm glad I read this book and am still feeling very inspired to examine my own life and my personal opportunities for greater happiness. I think this is a book that deserves re-reading because it is packed with ideas, quotes and inspiration. I wish I had taken notes the first time-around, but I think I'll enjoy a second reading and that doing so will help me to further organize my thoughts. This is a book I plan to save and revist again over the years.
