The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
by Gretchen Rubin
List Price: $25.99
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (December 29, 2009)
Language: English
From the publisher: Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project. With humor and insight, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.
My take: I was just tickled to get a chance to review this book because ironically, these past few months have been my time to change my life. To use a cliche, I decided last year that now is the time to live my best life. All my life I've cared more for others than for myself. No more. I decided that I had to make myself a priority and I have. Part of living my best life has been to live a happier life. Now granted, I had to work on clinical issues first but now that I have those under control, how can I achieve that elusive goal of happiness? Author Gretchen Rubin had the same questions and she set about answering them.
My take: I was just tickled to get a chance to review this book because ironically, these past few months have been my time to change my life. To use a cliche, I decided last year that now is the time to live my best life. All my life I've cared more for others than for myself. No more. I decided that I had to make myself a priority and I have. Part of living my best life has been to live a happier life. Now granted, I had to work on clinical issues first but now that I have those under control, how can I achieve that elusive goal of happiness? Author Gretchen Rubin had the same questions and she set about answering them.
Her approach of using rational problem solving techniques to solve an intangible problem (set a goal, research, settle on the steps needed to get to that goal, then measure your success) appealed to my anal (read: controlling) nature. What I got from this book was that real happiness is obtainable by taking steps, both minute and large. I liked how the book was fleshed out with Ms. Rubin real life antidotes - she weaves in quotes, statistics, studies and personal reflections (and reader's comments from her blog) to offer insight into what happiness really is and how to get to your own personal best level of it. She never shied away from pointing out her own shortcomings and so offers a clear and honest appraisal of her own flaws and how she recognized and overcame then.
In short, I treasured this book. I took twice as long to read it as I normally would (I'm a speed reader) so I could juice every last bit of advice from it. The pages and cover are tattered and dog eared from use. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to live a happy life (and shouldn't that be all of us?)
This post was written for HarperCollins Publishers who provided the book for review. I was not compensated in any way except for the complimentary book.
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