The Happiness Project

Tips for applying my top-secret happiness formula.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: tips for applying my top-secret happiness formula.

Okay, it’s not really top secret. But I’m convinced that, if followed, this formula will indeed make you happier. Even thought it sounds simplistic, it took me a long time and a lot of research to realize that this was the way to think about happiness.

Here it is: To think about your happiness, you must think about FEELING GOOD, FEELING BAD, and FEELING RIGHT (or, in fancier language, positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction.)

Although you might think that feeling good and feeling bad would operate in a see-saw, in fact, research shows that they are distinct—and so is feeling right.

Studies show that absence of feeling bad doesn’t mean that you feel good, and also, you can feel very good and very bad at the same time. And just because you feel good doesn’t mean you feel right; sometimes, in fact, you might choose to feel bad in order to feel right.

So to boost your happiness, you have to think about all three elements and figure out how to increase your good feelings, decrease your bad feelings, and make sure you’re feeling right:

1. Feeling good
Think of something fun to do this weekend.

Make a plan with a friend.

Make a small purchase that will boost your happiness.
My self-inking home-address stamp had gotten so faint that it was barely legible; I was made ridiculously happy by my purchase of a bottle of ink to replenish it.

2. Feeling bad
Do you start your day on a bad note—nagging your kids, cursing on the subway? Make a change.

Does some task nag at you? Take care of it.
I finally made an appointment to get my teeth cleaned; I’m six months overdue.

Do you feel guilty about something you did or didn’t do? Make amends in some way.

3. Feeling right
Is there a skill that you feel that you should have, but you don’t? Figure out a way to learn it.
A friend of mine learned to type as an adult.

Is there a subject that you feel that you ought to know more about?
I feel that I need to understand more about the Iraq War than I do.

Ask yourself: “Is there some major element in my life that just feels wrong to me?”
Try not to panic if the answer is “yes,” and don’t worry now about doing anything about it this minute. Just consider whether you’re not feeling right because of your job, your city, your relationship, your body, etc. Understanding that something isn’t right is the first step to being able to make it right.

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A friend was raving about a book that's about to come out--Sharon Moalem's Survival of the Sickest. Apparently it explains why, in many circumstances, disease can have beneficial effects. Plus, my friend says, it's full of the kind of interesting information that's fun to trot out at a dinner party. This is just the kind of thing I love, so I went to check out the blog. Lots of fascinating info there.

In which I reflect on someone else's very different approach to a happiness project.

Last night, I finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. In some ways, her story is very much like the Happiness Project—she decides to change her life to see if she can boost her happiness. Except in her adventuresome case, she moves for several months to Rome to study Italian, then to India to practice meditation in an ashram, then Bali to visit a medicine man, while I’ve stayed parked in my own kitchen.

It’s a great book, and Gilbert has many fascinating adventures and insights. She eats a lot of pasta, travels to many cities, meditates, makes new friends, learns a lot about herself, and in my favorite section of the book, raises money to buy a house for a woman and her children. But boy, her happiness project wouldn’t have made me happy.

More and more, I’m realizing how unique each person’s happiness project must be. The secret to making yourself happier is to realize what’s right FOR YOU (though no matter what your personality, you’d better include a supportive social network in your blueprint). For example, travel makes Gilbert very happy; I’ve never had wanderlust.

Another difference between our happiness projects is our starting point. Gilbert is profoundly unhappy and starts her travel year out of desperation. She’s going through a difficult divorce, plus she’s breaking up with a new love. She cries all the time, she’s taking antidepressants, she can hardly eat. My story is much less dramatic.

I worry that people will find my account boring for that reason, because the stakes are too low—no divorce, no 700-pound weight loss, no dysfunctional, abusive family. Maybe people will find me unsympathetic. “Why is she spending so much time trying to be happier? She admits that she was pretty happy before she even started!”

As it turns out, most Americans say they’re happy. In a recent survey, 34% of Americans described themselves as “very happy” and 50% described themselves as “pretty happy.” That’s 84%, and that’s a lot.

Desperately unhappy folks know they need to make changes. But I hope that my happiness project will show people that it’s worth the effort to make changes, even if you’re “pretty happy” already.

I’ve been surprised by how much work it is to be happy, but I’ve also been surprised by what a boost I got from the steps I’ve taken. And I’ve really come to believe that even if you’re already pretty happy—or if you don’t believe in thinking about your life in terms of “being happy”—it’s worth taking the trouble to be happier.

If not for yourself—for other people. Happier people are more helpful, more flexible, more altruistic, more energetic, and more likeable. Their happiness helps other people feel happier. So by taking the trouble to make yourself happier, you’ll make others happier too.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s transformation is remarkable. I marvel at how much she went through—both before her Eat, Pray, Love adventure, and during it. But you don’t have to wait until you can move to Rome, or live in an ashram, to start a happiness project. The ruby slippers are on your feet right now.

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Many thanks to Tim, who out of sheer generosity fixed the color in my blog photo. Tim, I hope your good deed has made YOU very happy—that’s the “do good, feel good” effect.

Should my seven-year-old wear clothes that she likes or that I like?

Thinking about happiness often means balancing one person’s views against another person’s—I’ve been thinking about kids’ clothing.

The Big Girl has started having definite ideas about what clothes she likes and dislikes. And her tastes and my tastes clash.

I’d love for her to wear classic children’s clothing—Peter Pan collars, wool dresses. But that’s not what she wants to wear.

So who prevails? I’ve decided that clothes, unless actually inappropriate, aren’t important enough to merit a parental veto—within reason, of course, and properly priced. But t-shirts with big designs and sparkles, jeans with embroidered flowers up and down the legs, ugly color combinations…okay.

A parent might feel very strongly that children shouldn’t bow to fashion or fads, so the fact that other kids dress a certain way is itself a reason not to permit it. Or a parent might make an aesthetic judgment and want children to dress according to adult taste, no matter what the other kids are wearing.

In Judith Rich Harris’s fascinating and controversial book, The Nurture Assumption, she argues that childhood is the period in people’s lives when fitting in is most important. Therefore, she suggests, parents should help their children look “normal and attractive”—for example, by dressing them in clothes like those of other kids.

I was very lucky with this issue growing up. I was an odd duck, and desperate to fit in, but so anxious I couldn’t even go about it properly. I remember when my mother said, “Would you like to go shopping for jeans?” I didn’t have a single pair of jeans! I did want a pair, but I dreaded shopping for them so much that I couldn’t bring myself to mention it. I was incredibly grateful to my mother for understanding all this.

Of course I want my children to understand the importance of being able to buck the crowd, to assert themselves to do the right thing, to defend unpopular ideas or preferences. But I’ve decided that clothes aren’t the ground to make the parenting point about the importance of the individual conscience; plus I wonder whether being able to fit in with the crowd is an important step in being able to stand up to the crowd effectively.

Yes, yes, this is a petty issue. That said, I’ve talked to plenty of adults who remember being made miserable by the clothes they had to wear as children.

Was this unhappiness good for them? I don’t think so. As Samuel Johnson observed, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.”

And the Big Girl's taste is actually growing on me.

A quotation from Montaigne.

“Excess is the bane of pleasure, and temperance is not its scourge but its seasoning.” --Montaigne

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Ben Casnocha's blog is definitely worth a visit. He writes about "entrepreneurship, current affairs, books, education, and intellectual life" as seen by an 18-year-old. (An old soul, though.) He's taking a "gap year" between high school and college--I was very pleased to learn the new lingo.

Hedonic adaptation, Amazon.com, negativity bias, and happiness.

“Hedonic adaptation” is a valuable psychological phenomenon that unfortunately, in some circumstances, can deaden happiness.

We’re very adaptable to our current situations, for good or for ill, so generally only shifts up or down from our “normal” experience get noticed. Hedonic adaptation is an advantage in difficult situations, but can be a disadvantage when it means that we cease to appreciate pleasant circumstances.

“Habit,” as Aldous Huxley explained, “converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.”

One way to combat hedonic adaptation is to cut back on a luxurious enjoyment. If you get a cinnamon dolce latte twice a week instead of every morning, it will feel like a real treat.

Another way is to make the effort to savor the luxurious enjoyment. Don’t just grab your cinnamon dolce latte and run. Anticipate how good it will taste, tell other people how much you enjoy it, mindfully enter into the experience of drinking it, instead of gulping it down without a thought.

I’ve noticed that certain luxurious enjoyments don’t present themselves as luxuries at all. For me, a good example of this kind of luxury—at the risk of sounding like a paid flack—is Amazon.com.

I loooooove Amazon.

I use it to buy cheap used copies of the books I want, I use the reviews and the “Look Inside” function to help me decide whether to buy, I use the reader recommendations and the books suggested by Amazon.

I’ve just discovered the amazing “Search Inside” tool. I often want to re-read some half-remembered passage, but don’t feel like hunting it down. For example, I recently wanted to re-read the passage in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan where Barrie explains that the Neverlands is different for every child:

John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents …On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.

I did a search for “land no more,” a phrase I remembered, and up it popped. Supremely satisfying.

But I never gave much thought to Amazon. Now, though, I’ve trained myself to pause as I click on the link to think: zoikes, I love Amazon. It’s fun, it’s useful, it’s easy, it’s free, it’s all about books. What a luxury.

One thing, however, I try not to do is to read the Amazon reviews of Power Money Fame Sex, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, Forty Ways to Look at JFK, or Profane Waste. Because of the “negativity bias,” our negative reactions are far stronger and more persistent than our positive reactions. I’ve discovered that reading one bad comment will ruin my morning, and reading five positive comments won’t cheer me up. So I try to resist.

That said, a good (yet easy) deed is to post a positive review for a book you like. Readers really pay attention to those reviews—well, at least I pay attention—and so taking a few minutes to say that you liked a book is a service to other readers and, of course, the writer. Even if the writer might be too thin-skinned to read those reviews very often.

I’m off to Amazon right now to buy David Mitchell’s FANTASTIC novel, Cloud Atlas. I’m halfway through my library copy, but love it so much that I want to buy it for the Big Man to take on his next India trip.

Does watching TV make us happy?

In a February 5, 2007 Fortune article, TV is Dying? Long Live TV!, Geoff Colvin reports that last season, the average American watched four hours and 35 minutes of TV each day—the highest amount ever recorded.

The relationship between TV-watching and happiness is something that has puzzled me.

On the one hand, I’ve read some research that people who watch TV felt less active and focused than they did before they started watching.

On the other hand, watching TV is an overwhelmingly popular activity. In the modern world, TV-watching consumes the most time, after sleeping and working.

In the long run, I would think, people watching a lot of TV would be happier if they spent that time engaged in some kind of social activity. Or going to sleep earlier. Or exercising.

And yet they watch TV. Why?

I’ve been trying to identify the factors that make TV-watching rewarding.

If you’re tired, you can just sit down and watch. Other hobbies take more effort and organization and coordination of plans. And you can lounge around with your feet up and your head on a pillow—no sitting at a desk or standing at a work table.

Thinking about my happiness formula—feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right—TV can often make you feel good (if you watch an interesting or funny show) or can alleviate feeling bad (by distracting you from your worries). On the other hand, for many people, TV-watching is itself a source of not feeling right. They berate themselves for watching too much TV.

I’ve increasingly come to the view that happiness contains within it a notion of advancement. (Yes, I know that’s not what Buddhists believe, but at least for Western types, I think that’s true). We’re cheered by the sense of progress, of things are moving forward. That’s why it’s satisfying to see the seasons change; to watch children grow; and to clean your closets. TV feeds into this, with reality shows, game shows, award shows, and sports shows that give a sense of progress.

Also, for some people, TV gives an artificial yet nevertheless satisfying sense of connection. Watching soap operas makes people happier—probably because folks feel like they have (imaginary) friends.

TV lets you chat with people around the water cooler. It provides a way to gossip without being hurtful. It can be a source of expertise, a way to be knowledgeable.

Watching TV is companionable. When the Big Man and I watch “The Office,” we feel like we’re doing something together. We’ve having the same experience, in a way that we aren’t if we’re both reading or working. Perhaps it would be more companionable to be playing backgammon—but I don’t like games. And he doesn’t like putting photos in a photo album.

I need to do more research on this. Some studies show that TV watching drags people’s moods down, but a 2004 study of 909 Texas women showed that watching TV scored high.

To me, the fact that people are overwhelmingly choosing to watch TV suggests that we aren’t finding it to be too much of a downer. Perhaps watching four hours of TV a day isn’t the kind of thing that we think should make us happy…but maybe it does.

That said, maybe other activities would make us even happier.

A quiz—are you at risk of dropping out of your new exercise program?

Every Wednesday is Tip Day (or occasionally quiz day).
This Wednesday: A quiz—are you at risk of dropping out of your new exercise program?

Exercise is a key component of happiness. If you want to boost your happiness, one of your top priorities should be adding exercise to your day. I take a yoga class twice a week and a strength-training session twice a week, and I know that my regiment contributes a lot to my happiness.

I asked my two instructors if, when a new person approached them, they could detect whether that person was likely to stick with the program or drop out.

They both agreed that there are warning signs. So take this quiz. If one of the statements below sounds like the kind of thing you’d say, beware. You may need to make a special effort to stick to a program.

Check off any statement that sounds like it could have come out of your mouth:

“This time, I’m really going to stick to it! I mean it, I’m totally, 100% committed!”

“I’m potentially thinking that maybe I might join this class.”

“Well, afternoons don’t work. And I can’t do mornings. I can come Tuesdays at noon, but not this Tuesday. Or next Tuesday...”

“I’ll squeeze it in at lunchtime. I can just run out between meetings.”

“I have to start tomorrow. No delay!”

Nevertheless, both instructors agreed, people often surprise them. They seem like they might not stick to it, but then they hang in there.

Six months is an important milestone; if you can keep up a new program for six months, it becomes part of your normal routine.

Also, you’ll probably have better luck maintaining an exercise program if you focus on the benefits you’ll get in mood, energy, and focus. If you tell yourself that you’re only exercising to lose weight, you’re more apt to drop out.

If you've having trouble finding a program that works for you, buy a pedometer and aim for 10,000-12,000 steps a day.

Thoughts on someone else's happiness project--a bike-based project.

A friend who works for Mayor Bloomberg told me they have a “countdown clock” in the office. It counts down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until Bloomberg’s term is over. The clock is meant to remind folks to “Make every day count” as they rush to push forward the Mayor’s policies.

I love this motto, “Make every day count.” After all, we all have our own countdown clock; we just don’t know how many days are left.

The Big Man and I listen to the radio after we turn out the lights at night (I know, many people think that’s a bad idea, but that’s what we do). The announcers frequently repeat the date, “It’s 11:40 p.m. on Monday, January 22.” And I’m always reminded, not necessarily in a bad way, of the days marching on.

Did I make the day count? Did I do something I wanted to do, act the way I wanted to act?

A reader sent me a link to a fascinating article written by the editor-in-chief of Bicycling magazine, The Year I Did Everything Right by Steve Madden.

Madden decided to do his own sort of “happiness project”—he spent a year doing everything right with his bicycling (which goes to show that each person's happiness project will look different). He kept his bike in top repair, he got it fitted for his specifications, he trained hard and regularly, he ate right and lost weight, and all the rest.

Two points particularly caught my interest.

First, Madden decided to make big changes, even though his life sounds like it was perfectly fine, as it was. I’ve noticed that many people’s “happiness projects” involve huge upheavals, like moving to Tibet or Walden Pond, or giving up shopping, or taking a sabbatical from their family, or the like. But I firmly believe that you can do a “happiness project” within your ordinary life—and that it’s really worth the effort to do so.

Second, Madden notes how hard it was for him to maintain his “do everything right” ambition. I, too, have been struck by how much work it is to be happy—it takes a huge amount of time, focus, and energy to do all the things I know I ought to do. These efforts make me happy, sure, but nevertheless they also take a lot of discipline.

He concludes with the observation that it’s easier to stick to small changes than to big changes, and that even if he’s not able to do everything right, all the time, he’s a lot better off than he was a year ago.

My thoughts exactly. Even though I never manage to stick to all my happiness-project resolutions, I'm doing a better job of making every day count, now that I'm making a more mindful effort.

Does a happiness project actually give a happiness boost?

One key question about my happiness project is: does it work? I’m doing all these things, trying to follow all my resolutions, is it making any difference?

My answer is—absolutely. I absolutely feel happier today than I did a year ago.

But, I have to admit, I recently read about a study that showed that people who participate in psychotherapy, or in programs to lose weight or to stop smoking, often claim a lot of benefit—even though on average they improve only modestly. Apparently when people spend a lot of time, money, and energy on a program, they conclude that they’ve seen a lot of improvement. Memory is a tricky thing.

This may also be related to the "placebo effect"—that is, treatment sometimes works because people expect it will work.

After I read about that study, I thought, “Well, maybe I haven’t had as big a boost in happiness as I think I have.”

When I consider my three prongs of happiness--feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right--I score higher, lower, and higher. So that seems to prove that I am happier, in some sort of scientific way.

But then I realized: even if I just think I’m happier, isn’t that enough to mean that I am happer? Even apart from the objective changes that make my life “better” whether or not they bring me happiness day to day—weight-training, tidier apartment, less nagging and yelling, etc.

A quotation from Leonardo da Vinci.

I just discovered something fascinating.

For years, I've been haunted by an illuminating observation by Leonardo da Vinci: “Intellectual passion drives our sensuality.”

Well, in checking the quotation for this post, I discovered that all these years, I've been pondering something I mis-typed years ago. The actual quotation is "Intellectual passion drives out sensuality." Exactly the opposite meaning.

Ah, I think my version is far superior. I've improved on Leonardo.