Harper Collins 2009. Jacket Design by Archie Ferguson and Christine Van Bree. Bluebird Illustration by Juliette Borda.
BOOKS READ 36: THE HAPPINESS PROJECT BY GRETCHEN RUBIN
I (as much as you possibly could for a blog entry), heavily debated whether or not to write about this book. To share my thoughts on it. To…admit that I read a self help book (although, while I am at it, I’ll admit that I read, and really enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love - what can I say, I like when people find themselves and share this with others!). But can one not argue that reading any book is a form of self help? You read a book to help you get through a day through escape, to help you wind down a day, to get you inspired.
Also the cover, I cringed when I saw it (illustrations of birds and a generic “young” typeface). I had read about the book on a blog somewhere and the person said it was really good, and I always like to read about happiness and I guess at that particular moment I felt I needed to read about happiness even more so, and went and put a hold at the library for this book.
I was the 53 person in line waiting for this book.
53!
And I can only imagine that there may be 53 more after me. Waiting.
The bookstore I used to work at, one of my first tasks was organizing the massive self-help section. It was at least 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide filled tight with books on self help. People at one point read these books and still do to this day.
This (the massive waiting line for this book and the massive amounts of self help books available) all of course are an indication of something, a general thing that many people have in common and I think don’t really overtly talk about partly because of living in a contemporary, developed society. The “thing”, seems, too indulgent, almost to the point of wrong - being unhappy.
I think about this all the time (and I also, geh, cringe at this), but in high school, I romanticized sadness, unhappiness. “You said I chose sadness, but it never once has chosen me.” I would always kind of purposefully felt sad because I felt like it was a stronger emotion and meant I was really “living”. Of course, you as much as I know how stupid this is and I know even though I thought I was sad at the time, I wasn’t.
I wouldn’t go so far to say that I’ve been feeling a lot of sadness lately, but I have been feeling a fair amount of…unhappiness. Which I think occurs when perceptions inside yourself and realities in front of you start to intersect more and become more present and pervasive in your conscience. It gets harder and harder to be light. And maybe even another 5 years from now I’ll look back on this part of my life and think about it like I think about how I “felt” in high school. “Enjoy your worries you may never have them again.”
Anyways, the book. To me, for the most part, it felt like a lot of the author’s theories on happiness, if I applied them in my life, I feel like I would turn into an even more passive aggressive person. That’s not to say though that she didn’t bring up interesting points and things worth trying. I think what was really nice was that she said that she was coming from a place where she wasn’t particularly severely unhappy, but she wasn’t completely happy either. And she also went on to explain that although who she is and her story may not be interesting (I agree), that people can at least learn something from her experience, that they agree and want to apply her theories, or that they don’t and need to consider something else, and that all of this, it’s just part of your way to happiness which is specific to you and only you and can be shaped and defined how you see fit (which is the most exciting and daunting aspect of the pursuit of happiness).
After reading the book though, I did feel better. It was nice to know that someone felt this way and that other people probably felt this way as well. I read somewhere that Jenny Lewis, she just wanted to write songs that made people feel less lonely (suspend your gag reflexes and carefully consider this). And there’s that Vonnegut quote, “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” Unhappiness and loneliness seem to be intertwined, and that pursuit of replacing it with company, comfort, and what have you so that is gone, is worthwhile and not at all indulgent.
That’s another thing this book slightly reaffirmed, the pursuit of happiness is not only noble and worthwhile.
But necessary.
And in a way, that’s what everything in this world is.
