Blog
March 9th 2011 | 3
The pursuit of happiness
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be happy.
Not surprisingly, this is a question that many people have explored in the past and many more will explore in the future.
Searching the word Happy in Google brings up the result of a WikiHow How to be happy – which lays out the foundation of happiness in twelve steps.
I don’t think it’s so simple.
But - In the same search I came across an online challenge I remembered hearing about a few years back.
The Happiness Project is an idea started by author Gretchen Rubin who wrote the bestselling nonfiction novel of the same name.
The idea came to Rubin a few years ago when she was sitting on a bus asking herself what she really wants from life and answering – I want to be happy.
Throughout the course of a year Rubin, did hundreds of experiments and challenges in achieving happiness. She realized one thing about what it means to be happy.
“Thinking about trying to be happier instead of thinking about what ultimate happiness would be is a lot easier”
The 2011 Happiness Project is a series of resolutions laid out by Rubin through videos on YouTube about simple changes in your life to concentrate on to be happier.
Some examples are:
-Getting to know yourself; knowing when you lie
-Getting more sleep
-Exercising more (even if it is just a little bit)
Rubin encourages everyone to join in with each resolution even if it does not apply to your personal journey. Everyone’s Happiness Project is different and if one resolution does not apply to you, another idea may stem from it.
Some may argue that it’s redundant to strive for happiness in life, that if you continually long to be happy then you never will reach your goal.
But I believe that by making small changes and becoming happier in life, your goal is already reached.
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
To leave off, how about the Lissie cover of Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness”?
Discussion
-
The simple answer is, if you want to be happy just be happy.
The place to be happy is here and the time is now.
It’s really that simple.
Try it out.
I often wonder if lichens are happy being lichens.
hmm
-
I disagree. You can’t just turn on a switch and be happy. I remember the last time I was truly happy was last year after I finished my spring course with an “A.” I enjoyed the spring course but just like the school year, it was stressful and challenging. I was happy because I accomplished something and could relax afterwards.
Great blog post, Lauren. I think about happiness all the time.
– Matty in Winnipeg, MB | March 21st 2011 at 8:31am | Link
-
We can agree do disagree. I don’t need to accomplish anything to be happy. In the grand scheme of things nothing most people do will matter, what matters is that we are here and for us to be here is amazing enough.
“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be , is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be.”
