Does taking steps to try to be happier actually WORK?

When I tell people that I’m working on a happiness project, they often ask, with some skepticism, “Well, does it make a difference? Are you actually happier?”

Yesterday is a good example of how taking steps to be happier actually does result in more happiness.

My resolutions include “take time for mini-adventures” and “see friends.” So yesterday afternoon, a friend and I went down to the Flower District and wandered through the shops for a few hours. We didn’t have any particular goal in mind, and just looked around at the Christmas flowers—some fresh, some fake—and at the enticing, cheap, plastic, decorative gewgaws. Why do I find a bag of tiny plastic babies so fascinating? Or fake zinnia heads? Or butterflies made of gold sequins? She’s exactly the same way, so we were drawn to the same odd sections of these stores.

Another of my resolutions is to “collect something.” I’ve decided to collect bluebirds, because bluebirds are a symbol of happiness. My friend knew where to buy fake birds (how she knows these things, I have no idea) so we went there.

I bought a bluebird for $2.71.

Now, a year ago I wouldn’t have allowed myself to do this. I wouldn’t have wasted my money and cluttered my office with a fake bird. I would’ve felt too guilty about taking a few hours away from work to do “nothing”; even though the nature of my work makes it easy for me to do this, still, I resist.

But I had a great time. I had a lovely afternoon with a good friend. I felt stimulated in obscure ways by seeing all this stuff. It made me happy to take advantage of the strange treasure trove of New York City, which I do too infrequently.

What’s more, buoyed by a fun afternoon, I had the mental wherewithal to tackle something that I’d been postponing for a long time: figuring out how to post my own photographs onto my blog.

It took a long consultation with the Big Man, but now I can do it.

Here's my photo of the bluebird I saw over Thanksgiving break. It flew to a tree by the window and sat there for fifteen minutes as I worked away. It seemed like a good omen.

And now I can email photos, as well. Everyone else in the country has figured out how to do this, but I just got on board. So although I felt like I was wasting time, in fact, I was being quite productive—just not in a sit-in-front-of-my-computer-typing kind of way.

So it was a happy day.

Comments

[Erik Mazzone]

Hi Gretchen, great post. I really like your blog and the scope of your whole project.

Your post today hinted at a theme that underlies many of your insights and conclusions so far on happiness: namely, that happiness is a choice. Taking concrete steps to be happy is a fruit of that choice.

An interesting offshoot to consider might be, what if you decide to be happy, but don't DO anything else to make it happen? I.e., can you be (or become) happy with everything just as it is right now, just by deciding to be?

A variation on the "happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want" theme.

Anyway, great stuff, keep it coming!

[Natalie]

Hi Gretchen, another wonderful post. I check in with you daily and have enjoyed the evolution of your work. This journey you've taken has been both interesting and helpful to me. Happiness seems quite circumstantial. In your effort to test ideas and theories, you are "setting yourself up" to be happy. This ties in with Erik's comment regarding choice. You are choosing behavior that makes you feel good. I'm beginning to think that contentment is more important than happiness. It seems that happiness is largely circumstantial (external) and contentment is something more internal. So now I wonder if one makes choices that lead to happiness, does consistent happiness lead to contentment?

[Sharyn]

I believe contentment is more important than happiness, so long as contentment doesn't mean complacency or smugness. I don't think one could have really lasting happiness without being content. "Happiness", as it's usually defined, will come and go, but true contentment can stay. Happiness is like a sudden flare, but contentment is more like the steady flame that's always there, that the flare can rise from. Also, re: "Happiness is wanting what you have" - that's contentment, really.
And here's a real hot potato that hasn't been addressed, Gretchen, but I wish you would - the role some form of religious faith/belief in a higher power - whatever you want to call it - plays in achieving happiness or contentment.

[peter vajda]

methinks that the energy of contentment is different from that of happiness...the energy of contentment is akin to that of the Buddhist notion of non-attachment; no highs, no lows, but a consistent state of being with what is with no ego involvement; the energy of happiness is "faux", fleeting, ego-driven and basically, often, an illusion, ending up in needing more and more, the ephemeral nature of "happiness."
The difference between "having" and "happy" is one of the most difficult life lessons and most folks, in my experience, equate "having" with happiness...the "faux" kind of happiness...where folks live the appearance of "happy" but really don't energetically experience the true phenomenological experience called "happiness".

[jo-less]

This might interest you - a degree in happiness and wellbeing :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6177719.stm

[Matthew]

Funny. I live near the studio where the original "bluebird of happiness" is made. http://users.aristotle.net/~russjohn/art/terra.html

[John Hill]

A very thought provoking article. I also take regular mini adventures even when I'm very busy with work and I always come back with a clear head which leads to greater productivity and most importantly, happiness.