happy

a few weeks ago, my cousin haley jo recommended a book to me. the happiness project by gretchen rubin. so i finally picked it up the other day at target, because the last few days had been rough and my confidence has been very low. so i thought, "i'm hating myself. i definitely need some happiness in my life." so i threw it into the cart along with the toilet paper and paper towels and felt a little better. it was something to look forward to other than just eating cookie butter and watching the news, right?

the book details rubin's year of happiness searching, where she looks within herself to be happier and make changes in order to make her life happier overall...and uses serious research to back it up. yes, happiness is one of those seemingly mystical things that everyone strives for but not everyone seems to have, but you'll just have to read it, because it's really hard to explain what rubin is really doing and do it any justice at all. 

i started reading the book last night and i'm already about halfway finished. i think it might be one of those life-changing books, because i have already found myself thinking about things that rubin says about her happiness project and wanting to read more. it's made me stop and evaluate my own happiness.

in the book, rubin plans out goals for herself for each month, and each month is a certain topic. January was "Vitality," February was "Marriage," and so on. she talks about family and money and relationships and work — everything in life, basically. so in order to start my own "project," i have to figure out how i can be happier and what things in my life/about myself make me less happy. now this is not to say that my life doesn't make me happy, because it does. it's more about personal, internal happiness, and less about what you can do to change other people in your life.

i'm not saying that this will fix everything in everyone's lives, but it certainly has me thinking. 

i know i need to have more patience with kyle, and everyone for that matter.

i know if i tried to keep the house picked up a little better, kyle and i wouldn't have to spend time doing it on the weekends when we'd rather be napping or going for coffee.

i know that if i kept the cards and stationery better organized, i would be more likely to remember to send birthday/anniversary/thank you cards, which was one of my resolutions this year, and i haven't kept it very well.

these may seem trivial, and maybe they are, but they are my things, and they are things that would fit into some of rubin's categories and theories. she's done her research, so i buy what she's saying.

anyway, i guess the point of this rant is just to say that i'm trying to make my life happier, because we only get one. and i know that if i am happier, the closest people around me (kyle, my family, my future children, the cashier at Trader Joe's), will be happier, too. 

love.

krq.