The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin focuses on Rubin’s year long challenge/resolution to herself – to be more happy. To do this Rubin breaks up the months into different sections she is going to focus solely on, with the previous months lessons joining in to make the happiness flow easier. There are many facts and tidbits within this book that Rubin talks about regarding happiness and how it affect people in all walks of life.
It’s an interesting read, Rubin lives in New York City with her husband and two children, they live in an apartment but given that Rubin is a full time writer, they are pretty well off compared to other people, so it could be a turn off for people who aren’t in the same comfortable circumstances that she is in.
On the flip side however, you could take it more as a guide, in fact half way through the book – about May or April – Rubin adds comments from her blog posts with her readers own personal opinions on the Happiness Project and how they are taking the idea to suit them. Which I think is the general idea, what Rubin is doing does give more scope for people who have more money, but the general idea is still there.
Granted to negative side to this is the amount of people that she has put into her book appear to all be abled bodied folk, some people do say that they don’t have the money to do certain things but they work with what they have. It’s a shame though that she hasn’t included people who are disabled in the book, because maybe some folk might think that they would also be able to try something similar out’? The fact that Rubin has put in a lot of comments from her blog posts does seem rather lazy, they take up a lot of space in the latter part of the book, yet is it really a bad thing? People talking about what they took from her post and worked with it to make something more suitable for themselves can’t be a bad thing, and given the fact that they are working within their own means surely means that Rubin is trying to give her readers alternatives. Although maybe if she had contacted a few of her commentors and asked them to give their own opinions for certain months due to their own circumstances and living arrangements, would have let the reader feel more connected to the book instead of it being about a married mum of two young kids who is well off.
Rubin also asked the question of how can you make not just your own life a bit happier, but also the people within your life happier too?
There are times when I do feel she hasn’t done as much research as she thinks. For example she stated that even introverts like being social. Um, yea introverts do enjoy being social, introverts like being around people but being an introvert means that – roughly – they will feel drained after the social event, they need time alone to just regain their energy.
Of course being happy isn’t a 24/7 focus, Rubin has failings, she has moments where she does become snappy, grouchy and not as understanding with her kids and husband as she wants to be, but that is pretty much what being human is.
The Happiness Project is a good read, it gives insights into the way we think and how we could try and change our way of doing things if we wanted to, but it’s unrealistic to think that we are never going to be unhappy or sad, because the emotions can’t be and should be blocked out.
Maybe check this book out, it’s an interesting read and even if you aren’t going to do a full year resolution to being happy, maybe you could take away one or two things to try out?
The Pen and the Book 