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lunabee34One of my dearest friends received this book for Christmas this year. Saturday, she gave me my very own copy because she has found it valuable in helping her deal with what has been an extraordinarily difficult year for her.
The Happiness Project is just what it sounds like on the tin. Rubin--married mother of two, successful writer and lawyer, and economically comfortable New Yorker--decides that while she doesn't necessarily feel unhappy (in fact, she generally feels pretty okay in the happiness department), she'd like to try a year-long experiment designed to increase her happiness. She devotes each month of the year to a particular area of her life and makes three to four goals for that area. She charts her progress on that area and attempts to maintain growth even while transitioning to the next month's focus.
I haven't quite finished the book, but much of what Rubin writes speaks to me. I think I want to start a happiness project of my own, and not because I feel pretty okay in the happiness department, which feels like a good thing.
In many respects, Rubin and I are much alike. Excepting the past three or four months as a statistical fluke with direct environmental causes, I am generally fairly happy. I am certainly happier now than I was eight years ago or six or five. I feel like I have been consistently growing towards greater levels of happiness.
I have many thing to be happy about. I have a career that I enjoy and that I feel is rewarding and useful. I have a healthy marriage to a man with whom I am extremely compatible. My child is very intelligent, very sweet, healthy and fun to be around. We make enough money that I can buy what I want to when I go to the grocery store (which is Lorraine's measure of adequate wealth). Although we are in more debt than I'd like, that debt isn't crippling or insurmountable. We have two cats that bring a great deal of joy into our lives. There's enough good TV and movies and books to last me the rest of my life without running out. LOL
And yet, like Rubin initially believed and found to be true through her project, I feel like I'm not maximizing my happiness potential.
Now, those of you who've been around for awhile know that I struggle with depression and anxiety. Rubin quite rightly separates the happiness/unhappiness continuum from depression and other mental illness. Those are distinct from the kind of happiness she talks about. So, I'm not starting a Happiness Project in the hopes that it will magically cure my anxiety or perform the same work as Effexor. However, I do think that the things I want to work on in my Happiness Project will help me to manage aspects of my anxiety and depression.
As many of you know, the past few months have been very difficult for my family. Between work-related drama and Josh's illness(es), I have not been in a good mental place since April. I have found myself regressing into coping methods that don't really work well in the long run and exacerbating my anxiety with bad habits like not getting enough sleep or exercise. I have to do something different, or I am going to dig myself into a pretty damn deep hole.
I don't want to do a project like Rubin's. Her project is too involved. If I set mine up like hers, I'll fail and get frustrated and feel even worse than I did to start with. What I want to do is choose five areas to focus on and not give myself firm deadlines for transitioning between them. At some point, I may add to the list once I become comfortable with what I've written here.
1. Go to sleep earlier. I struggle so much with this, and I feel like such an idiot for it. Am I a grown up or what? Or what, apparently. Sleep is so important. People who sleep enough live longer and work more productively and contract fewer illnesses and are more creative and on and on. I KNOW that getting enough sleep is incredibly important, and yet I consistently operate on a sleep deficit. I'm self-aware enough to recognize that lack of sleep contributes to my crankiness with my family, how readily I can shrug off minor disappointments, and my anxiety level. So what's the deal? Part of the problem is moving to the Eastern time zone. All the good TV comes on an hour later than it used to in MS. Part of the problem is that as Emma gets older and her bedtime gradually gets pushed back, I have less and less of the day to myself to do what I want on my own. I haven't worked out exactly how I want to do this. Clearly I need to set myself a bedtime (OH MY GOD I AM DYING INSIDE Y'ALL!), but when? And should I have a different weekday bedtime than weekend bedtime?
2. [Redacted.]
3. Exercise consistently. For a whole year, I was so good about exercising, and then Josh got sick and I couldn't exercise because he was in the hospital and then I still couldn't exercise because of a work commitment and now I can exercise but all it took was a month for me to fall out of the habit and become complacent. This one is actually the easiest thing on my list. Once I get into the swing of things, I really enjoy exercising. I just have to do that initial push.
4. Correspond more frequently. I have a lot of friends that I care about a great deal and who I don't keep up with very well for several reasons. The first is that with few exceptions I hate to talk on the phone. I really, really dislike it, sometimes to the point of stressing about it. The second is that I'm pretty selfish and self-absorbed and unless I encounter someone in my regular orbit, it's easier than I'd like to admit for her to fall off my radar. I want to do better about keeping in touch with the people I care about. I want to send more emails and more physical mail to people just because.
5. Stop rehearsing conversations in my head. I made this resolution before the Christmas holidays this past year and pretty faithfully kept to it until April when things started getting hairy around here. And now I can't stop. Rehearsing conversations in my head is like a sickness for me and has been for years. What will I say if he says X? How will I respond if she does Z? I have played out intricate what-if scenarios in my head literally for hours only to find myself getting angry with people for shit they haven't said or done yet. I practice my impassioned speeches about social issues and religion just in case my parents say that one thing I can't swallow my wrath for. I imagine actually telling people who've hurt me exactly what I think of them. I plan what I will do in the worst case scenario, and it is killing me. Doing this is so unhealthy, and I have to stop.
I will welcome any suggestions or discussion on how to make this project work for me. Since these are areas I struggle with, any advice is welcome and appreciated.
The Happiness Project is just what it sounds like on the tin. Rubin--married mother of two, successful writer and lawyer, and economically comfortable New Yorker--decides that while she doesn't necessarily feel unhappy (in fact, she generally feels pretty okay in the happiness department), she'd like to try a year-long experiment designed to increase her happiness. She devotes each month of the year to a particular area of her life and makes three to four goals for that area. She charts her progress on that area and attempts to maintain growth even while transitioning to the next month's focus.
I haven't quite finished the book, but much of what Rubin writes speaks to me. I think I want to start a happiness project of my own, and not because I feel pretty okay in the happiness department, which feels like a good thing.
In many respects, Rubin and I are much alike. Excepting the past three or four months as a statistical fluke with direct environmental causes, I am generally fairly happy. I am certainly happier now than I was eight years ago or six or five. I feel like I have been consistently growing towards greater levels of happiness.
I have many thing to be happy about. I have a career that I enjoy and that I feel is rewarding and useful. I have a healthy marriage to a man with whom I am extremely compatible. My child is very intelligent, very sweet, healthy and fun to be around. We make enough money that I can buy what I want to when I go to the grocery store (which is Lorraine's measure of adequate wealth). Although we are in more debt than I'd like, that debt isn't crippling or insurmountable. We have two cats that bring a great deal of joy into our lives. There's enough good TV and movies and books to last me the rest of my life without running out. LOL
And yet, like Rubin initially believed and found to be true through her project, I feel like I'm not maximizing my happiness potential.
Now, those of you who've been around for awhile know that I struggle with depression and anxiety. Rubin quite rightly separates the happiness/unhappiness continuum from depression and other mental illness. Those are distinct from the kind of happiness she talks about. So, I'm not starting a Happiness Project in the hopes that it will magically cure my anxiety or perform the same work as Effexor. However, I do think that the things I want to work on in my Happiness Project will help me to manage aspects of my anxiety and depression.
As many of you know, the past few months have been very difficult for my family. Between work-related drama and Josh's illness(es), I have not been in a good mental place since April. I have found myself regressing into coping methods that don't really work well in the long run and exacerbating my anxiety with bad habits like not getting enough sleep or exercise. I have to do something different, or I am going to dig myself into a pretty damn deep hole.
I don't want to do a project like Rubin's. Her project is too involved. If I set mine up like hers, I'll fail and get frustrated and feel even worse than I did to start with. What I want to do is choose five areas to focus on and not give myself firm deadlines for transitioning between them. At some point, I may add to the list once I become comfortable with what I've written here.
1. Go to sleep earlier. I struggle so much with this, and I feel like such an idiot for it. Am I a grown up or what? Or what, apparently. Sleep is so important. People who sleep enough live longer and work more productively and contract fewer illnesses and are more creative and on and on. I KNOW that getting enough sleep is incredibly important, and yet I consistently operate on a sleep deficit. I'm self-aware enough to recognize that lack of sleep contributes to my crankiness with my family, how readily I can shrug off minor disappointments, and my anxiety level. So what's the deal? Part of the problem is moving to the Eastern time zone. All the good TV comes on an hour later than it used to in MS. Part of the problem is that as Emma gets older and her bedtime gradually gets pushed back, I have less and less of the day to myself to do what I want on my own. I haven't worked out exactly how I want to do this. Clearly I need to set myself a bedtime (OH MY GOD I AM DYING INSIDE Y'ALL!), but when? And should I have a different weekday bedtime than weekend bedtime?
2. [Redacted.]
3. Exercise consistently. For a whole year, I was so good about exercising, and then Josh got sick and I couldn't exercise because he was in the hospital and then I still couldn't exercise because of a work commitment and now I can exercise but all it took was a month for me to fall out of the habit and become complacent. This one is actually the easiest thing on my list. Once I get into the swing of things, I really enjoy exercising. I just have to do that initial push.
4. Correspond more frequently. I have a lot of friends that I care about a great deal and who I don't keep up with very well for several reasons. The first is that with few exceptions I hate to talk on the phone. I really, really dislike it, sometimes to the point of stressing about it. The second is that I'm pretty selfish and self-absorbed and unless I encounter someone in my regular orbit, it's easier than I'd like to admit for her to fall off my radar. I want to do better about keeping in touch with the people I care about. I want to send more emails and more physical mail to people just because.
5. Stop rehearsing conversations in my head. I made this resolution before the Christmas holidays this past year and pretty faithfully kept to it until April when things started getting hairy around here. And now I can't stop. Rehearsing conversations in my head is like a sickness for me and has been for years. What will I say if he says X? How will I respond if she does Z? I have played out intricate what-if scenarios in my head literally for hours only to find myself getting angry with people for shit they haven't said or done yet. I practice my impassioned speeches about social issues and religion just in case my parents say that one thing I can't swallow my wrath for. I imagine actually telling people who've hurt me exactly what I think of them. I plan what I will do in the worst case scenario, and it is killing me. Doing this is so unhealthy, and I have to stop.
I will welcome any suggestions or discussion on how to make this project work for me. Since these are areas I struggle with, any advice is welcome and appreciated.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-04 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-05 12:46 am (UTC)