Happiness Is… A Regularly Updated Blog

When I’m done searching for publishing-related stories, I have a couple blogs on productivity and self-motivation I like to check regularly, and it must have been from one of them that I first discovered Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, a blog where’s she’s giving preliminary reports on her book-in-progress-of-the-same-name, a memoir that will track the results of her taking the best advice throughout history, from Ben Franklin and Aristotle to the latest self-help experts (I manipulated the reading list by recommending Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia; that should weird things up a bit!)

The idea for a Happiness Project first came to her while she was riding in a cab to an event for one of her earlier books, Forty Ways of Looking at Winston Churchill, though she didn’t actually get started until after completing a similar book on JFK. That out of the way, she was ready to ask herself “What do I want from life?” and rearrange her behavior patterns to correspond with the answers. “Does it really work if you clean out your closets?” she asked rhetorically as we chatted about her research. “If you stop being mean to cabdrivers?” She’s tracking the effects on her career, her relationships with family and friends, and her own self-acceptance, all on the Druckerian principle that “you manage what you measure.” Seven months in, she says she’s thrilled to have gotten into better shape and to have taught herself to stop gossiping about other people, among other improvements. “I feel a lot happier,” she reports, “although I’ve also realized I was happy before. It’s like that saying: ‘What a great life I’ve had; I only wish I realized it sooner.’”

Rubin was careful to point out, that the blog’s version of the Happiness Project will not be the same as the book’s. The blog is more outward-focused, sharing tips and quotes with readers, while the book will be more of a personal account of her transformation—a factor that should set her book apart from all the more scientifically-themed investigations of happiness that have been popping up lately. And then, we joked, it’ll get shelved in the self-help section anyway, like her first book, Power Money Fame Sex: A User’s Guide. Wherever it ends up, though, it should prove very interesting. After all, who doesn’t want to find out how to be happy?

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