Starting a New Year with Happiness Project
The review printed on the book cover saying “This is the rare book that will make you both smile and think—often on the same page” proves that people—or at least I—should’ve not judged a book by its cover.
I personally did not think much—what I mean by ‘think’ is ‘self-asking’—nor laugh when I read every single page of this book. I mean I did grin with ‘huh’ sound signifying an unspoken statement, ‘Yea I do ever think that those small things could make me happy—or at least smile, but yea, I don’t know how to constantly doing those small things.’
I was expecting this book as a psychological-based theories written in a fiction way or a narration of compiled people’s stories in finding their happinness. But it is none of them. This book is more like a published diaries. It’s 368 pages talk about the author’s personal happiness-related resolutions that she sets for a year and a little bit about her findings on famous people’s theories on happiness.
I know I was being too judgemental about this book. But I just couldn’t help telling the truth that Gretchen’s resolution for January and February doesn’t really help me much on finding my happiness. I always go to sleep earlier, 10 pm at the latest. I exercise better as I do hula hoop while listening to a 3 min-song in the morning. I toss, restore and organize routinely, once in a week. I tackle a nagging task, I kept a daily life plan so that I wont miss my daily goal. And I do act more energetic, as an extrovert. For my romance, I have quit nagging after I learned mindfulness, about a year ago. I almost never expect for praise or appreciation from my lover. I fight right with him, but we rarely have any quarrel. I do no dumping to him. I admit that I was a girl with low self-awareness and make my lover on blame for any bad vibe I felt. But I gave it up. I changed as I learned mindfulness. Then I do give proofs of love—no need to mention here.
My complete checks for Gretchen’s two-month resolution of her happiness project left me pondering. ‘Have I been happy?’ or ‘If I have been happy, why I keep searching for things that could make me happier?’ ‘Is being just-happy is not enough?’ or ‘Afterall, I might have acted as a happy person and just need to live my routine, why bothering myself to read about happiness?’
It was when I take a glimpse on Gretchen’s resolution for March that I decided to continue reading this book. March is the month to Aim Higher for Gretchen. She sets goals to Launch a blog, Enjoy the fun of failure, Ask for help, Work smart, and Enjoy now. Among those goals, I was momentarily stoned by the first one. It’s like I was awaken from my long-delusional dream of being a person who able to voice my thought and share it to people. I made my first blog when I was still in freshman year. I intended to fill it with my writing on things I am curious about, so I named it ‘lotsofcuriosity’. But then I realized that my words are juggling to fast in my mind when I try to answer all of questions coming to my mind. I had to type real quick if I don’t wanna miss any single idea. It drained my energy. Or when I tried to actualize my thought into a kind of drawing concept in a piece of paper, most of the times my ideas would go without any specific answer. It would be just like a story with an open ending, which I don’t think is a nice thing to be put on a blog. So, I decided to halt it.
Another idea of making a blog, a more ambitious one, came when I was doing my skripsi, which is the same time I really enjoyed doing volunteering work. I even wanna make a personal website as I think it will be reader-friendly interface with good design. But the personal website needed good internet connection which I couldn’t afford. Besides, instead of focusing on the content, I was busy with the design and layout. Then, I consider it as a time-wasting-yet-unproductive thing. So, I decided to leave it.
But this feeling of guilt for not being able to win myself and keep blogging can’t live me alone and even lingers me more tightly. I cant escape thinking about starting a blog to spill any unspoken thought and share it to people.
Simply, the third chapter of this book practically has engaged me personally and made me want to read more. But as I read more, this chapter does not actually talk about how Gretchen is able to make a successful blog and consistently post her writings. It is more about launcing a blog as one kind of novelty that can lead people to happiness. So the blog isn’t a source of happiness, but novelty is.
Long time ago when I was ambitious to master my own mind, I read articles, mostly online, about psychology. And one article in the psychologytoday.com said that researchers found an interesting fact about human mind. It is that human mind enjoys processing new information. That’s why being curious and trying new things are recommended for people finding a way out from being emotionally unstable and negative-minded .
Another thing holding myself back from writing for a blog is also that I don’t see any fun of failure. Every time I begin to write, my mind will play flash-forward. How people will react to my ideas or the way I write scare me, so I tried to write at my best. But then I never satisfied with the results so I decided not to post it. Well, later, on her September resolution, Gretchen suggests any writer to forget about results when they are writing. And this is what I am trying to do. I spill any thought I am pondering and avoid editing before it completely is finished.
Other than those writing-related matters, some ideas that interest me personally are One-Minute Rule, a saying that people will feel happy if they think they are, and Happiness Journal.
One Minute Rule is a kind of self-disciplining attempt to procrastination that could lead anxiety and worry and hinder people from their happiness. It applies by raising awareness in our mind that if we have tasks that will take only a minute to handle, we have to do it right away without a second-thought. I have applied this rule and so far I could avoid myself from forgetting and procastinating. I could more focus my energy on writing, translating, or reviewing—this is how I do for a living—because I don’t need to think about small-and-simple-yet-energy-draining stuff such as making a bed, replying chats or emails, making folders on laptop,etc.
I personally believe that human can be ruled by nothing but their own mind. The way people feel, behave, taste, are all controlled by what they think about. People’s emotion are the same. I won’t believe when, for instance, my friend tells me that his boyfriend has made her be so mad because he cheated on her. The ‘cheating’ is only a circumstance. This circumstance was processed in mind and the mind producing negative wave. It is then spreaded to something located somewhere in people’s chest and it is actualized to be a negative energy and makes the rapid heart rate and faster breath, hot feeling on the neck till ears, shaking or trembling and clenching jaws that people called as an angry emotion. If one knows how to deceive their own mind, it won’t resonate any negative wave and won’t make any negative reaction. I think now I understand how ‘It’s all in your mind” works. Anyway, I can’t agree more with gretchen’s saying that ‘people will feel happy if they think they are.’
One way to keep minds in positiveness, Gretchen said, is by keeping a happiness journal. It’s a kind of diary but the content will be only about things that make people happy each day. She suggest to make it simple. One sentence of happiness each day. Though it may seems to be a piece of cake, but it suppose to keep people’s mind busy in pointing their today’s happiness. I think it’s worth a try.
The most important part of this book is the first paragraph of the the page titled ‘A Note to the Reader’ which I barely noticed in my second reading. On this two-sided page, Gretchen mentions that the first stage to change your life is identifying what brings you joy, satisfaction, and engagement, and also what brings you guilt, anger, boredom, and remorse. Second is the making of resolutions, when you identify the concrete action that will boost your happiness. Then comes the interesting part: keeping your resolution … Your project would look different from mine, but it’sthe rare person who can’t benefit from happiness project.
the rare person who can’t benefit from happiness project.
