Happiness....

Initially, I tossed aside Gretchen Rubin s ‘ The Happiness Project’ book as another vague self help book that sits beside tons of  ‘ Eight ways to becoming rich’ type self help books.  Then the little footer ‘ Start your own happiness project’ and the little ‘ Why I spent a year trying to sing in the morning…’ note in the cover convinced me to buy it to read. Simply because, like many, I believe Happiness scores over many things – including the egoistic desire to be right- in life

The lawyer turned writer Gretchen did set me thinking.  She does not outline a standard ‘ formula of happiness’ with a list of do s and don’t s for everyone. Instead, she describes her own attempts to make her life happier in a structured way, focusing on one aspect of what contributes to her happiness. This makes a crucial difference to the reader. Usually, we feel ‘lectured upon’ when we read self help books. Not with this one. I can assure you that you will find a candid narration of her own experience – some of them unsuccessful and some of them plain annoying – in her attempt to make her life and her family s life happy.

She is honest enough to admit that her approach may not work for others and each of us should explore our own path to a happier life.  This book is more of a mentor or a coach rather than an instructor.

Gretchen lists out twelve contributors to her happiness, starting with energy levels,love, setting higher goals and so on, assigining them each a month [ January for Energy, Feb for Love..] with the last one being the ‘boot camp’ . She punctuates the book with interesting anecdotes from her own professional and personal life – so, there is plenty of  ‘ being herself’ in this book. It is this aspect of the book that I found so appealing – her descriptive rather than an instructive style of constructing the book and drawing from her own experiences rather than outlining some vague theories.

Do not expect a new ‘ one sensational thing’ that will make life happier from this book – Instead, it is a collection of her own struggles, success, failures and experiences.  All of these virtues – Energy, Love, Goals, humor,hobby,friends…..are all things we have all tried to get a better understanding of in life and we know they make us happy. Many authors tend to stray way off the topic when they adopt a descriptive tone, but Gretchen stays focused from cover to cover.

I found this book a thought provoking one and at the same time a book that keeps you light with a lots of humorous stories. It did inspire me to try my own attempt at being happier in life – the first decision was to blog more – writing made me happy, but I never gave it the attention it deserved.

I would recommend this book as an interesting read, providing you some motivation and direction for making life happier, but like the author, I would be the first to declare that each of us is unique and the reader needs to explore his path to being happy. That way, the happiness would be genuine and true to our self.