"The Happiness Project"

I can't even remember where I heard about this book by Gretchen Rubin, but I'm already in love with it and I've only read the intro and first chapter. I probably love it so much because (at least so far) it sounds so much like me!

The book is about Gretchen deciding that while she is happy with her life, she could be much happier, and her journey throughout one year to increase her happiness. She tackles a different resolution each month (and they build on each other too, when she gets to February she still has to keep up with January). January's task was to boost energy.

She talks about how she's a gold star type of person. This means that without praise or a way of rewarding herself she tends to not get much done. Sound like someone else we know? (Me.) But it's funny how she describes her gold stars, because they're just like ones I give myself.

1) When she decided to exercise more and found out for good health a person should walk 10,000 steps a day, she bought a pedometer. And the very fact she was wearing a pedometer made her walk more. Because she was getting the "gold star" of seeing the number of steps she took. (I did this very same thing last fall, until my pedometer broke. I should get another. It would be good for me.)

2) She has clutter and it drives her crazy but she can never seem to get rid of it or take care of it properly. My husband and I moved into our new apartment last June. We still haven't completely moved in. Yes all the clothes are put away, electronics nestled where they should be, furniture arranged. But then there's the Iron Man action figure, the box of old Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines, the box of freebies (that we'll technically use but have no need for until we go on vacation or something)....random things strewn about that we're keeping, but what on earth do I do with them? There's no drawer just for things like that, no special box or corner, so they've ended up deposited where they first landed. I also have the terrible habit of not wanting to hang things on the walls and vacuum and such til all the clutter is taken care of. Then I can never get the clutter taken care of. (Though I am proud of myself. I went through a LOT of our things a few weeks ago and got rid of two bags of clothing and about four bags of trash that I have no idea why I'd left around.) Anyway, it's a vicious cycle. And like Gretchen if I can manage to really clean and organize one closet or one drawer or one corner I'm instantly thinking "Hooray! Mark that off the list!" I'm a mess with messes. Really I am.

3) She puts off tasks that she doesn't want to do FOREVER. Including an email that took her less than one minute to type and send. I am exactly the same way. Let's not get into that one. It circles back into the cleaning issue.

4) She will make extensive lists. CRAZY extensive lists down to points most people wouldn't even think of. And she will purposely write down things that only take five minutes to complete, something most people would never put on a list of projects, just for the pure joy of marking it off. I do this at work. Half the stuff I write down on my weekly list are things I do not need to remind myself to do. But I write them down just because I feel better KNOWING there will be things I can cross off. (This is especially helpful when a lot of my job involves waiting on other people to call me back, to fax me paperwork, to email me information...and several tasks I can never complete on my end until the other people do their work first. Meaning I'm helpless to wait for them.) If I can mark 50% of my list off at the end of each week I am happy. That means it was a good and productive week. Silly, I know. My household list actually tells me to "pick up the hallway". The only thing in the hallway was laundry so my husband asked me why I'd even bothered to list it. The reason? I know I can mark that off in two minutes. He just laughed at me and shook his head.

So why am I rambling about all of this? Because it all goes back to Nano and my novel I suppose. Especially the first point. I would stay up writing more in November just to see my word count go up, just like I'd take extra steps just to see my pedometer smile at me. Then November ended and there was no race for word count and frankly I have no bloody idea what my final word count would be so there's no goal there either. But this "happiness project" made me realize that while I need to be better about some things (like cleaning) to increase my already relatively happy life, writing is also a HUGE part of my happiness. So I have to make time for it. Whether there is a gold star waiting for me each day or not.

I won't keep a constant word count on here like I did during Nano. I'm sure you'll hear from me when I reach certain milestones and I'll continue to blog about the journey of writing. But I have written on 3 separate occasions this month. Not very much each time, but the act of sitting and writing feels good again. (There's my little update on writing this time amidst the other rambling.)

Take from this what you will, but it was all on my mind so I figured I would share.

Yours Truly,
Mrs. C