Projecting Happiness
A few years back, writer Gretchen Rubin decided to embark on a campaign to make herself happier, even though she acknowledges (and assured her husband) that she was already relatively happy. She chronicled her journey in
The Happiness Project. The subtitle here speaks volumes (or at least one volume):
Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. She decided to focus on boosting her happiness in different parts of her life, such as marriage, work, play and money. She chose to boost one part per month, for a year.
“Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier,and healthier,” she says. “Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens. I wanted to be one of those people.” On her Happiness Project website, she lists Four Splendid Truths. The fourth, and most salient of these in my opinion, is “You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy. Corollary: You’re happy if you think you’re happy.”
from Ken Robinson. Finding Your Element
Gretchen Rubin