The Happiness Project

I’ve read various books about happiness and positive thinking. Most of them have been bland and full of insignificant nonsense. Nevertheless, I still try to find interesting books about this subject.

I’ve always been a little negative personality. I’ve usually thought the worst  and I’ve always had sinking feelings about things. I easily nag and see other people’s flaws instead of their good qualities. A couple of years ago I started to think that I don’t want to be that person anymore. It was hard for myself to be like that. That’s when I started to read all kinds of book.

Last week I read a book by Gretchen Ruben, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closet, Fight Right, Read Aristoteles, and Generally Have More Fun. What I liked about this book was that it was practical, down to earth.

Several things that Gretchen Ruben did to be become happier, are not suitable for me. There was also common things, negativity, nagging, unfinished tasks and so on. Anyhow, the book was mediocre but fun to read.

But one thing went down pretty hard. Many of those thing that piss me off are actually things that I want to be done a certain way. I want the mugs to be in a specific order. Why should I expect others to do these things my way? I’m doing these thing for me and for me only. That’s what I realized. And I don’t know why it took me so long to see this. This doesn’t mean that I have to do everything, for example, housework should be shared evenly. But I have to separate those things that have to be shared from those things that I do for me. And the things that I do for me, well, stop nagging.

I also realized that I have to laugh more. My younger son once said to me, when I was laughing with tears in my eyes, that “Mum, nice to see you laughing, I hardly ever see you laughing”. That was quite a shock to me. Is that true? If it is, I have change it, immediately.

So, thank you, Gretchen Ruben, for making me see that one thing that I haven’t seen. It only took me 4o years, but, step by step, I’m developing and becoming a better person. That way a happier person, I hope.