The Happiness Project (27 page)

Several people shared their own versions of a one-sentence journal. One reader kept a journal that he planned to give to his three children; he travels a lot for work, so he keeps a small notebook in his briefcase, and every time he gets on a plane—and only while passengers are boarding—he fills a few pages about the latest goings-on in their family. I think this is a particularly brilliant solution because it transforms wasted time (boarding time) into an enjoyable, creative, and productive period. Another reader wrote to say that, after seeing an interview with the writer Elizabeth Gilbert on
Oprah,
she’d been inspired to imitate Gilbert’s practice of keeping a happiness journal in which she writes down the happiest moment of every day. Another reader, an entrepreneur, keeps a work journal, in which he notes any important work-related events, problems, or discoveries. He reported that it was an invaluable resource, because whenever he wants to remember how he handled a particular situation, his journal prompts his memory of how he handled it and what he learned: “I work alone, and if I didn’t have a work journal, I’d probably keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over. Also it gives me a feeling of progress by reminding me how far I’ve come since I started my company.”

Along with keeping the one-sentence journal, the catastrophe memoirs spurred me to take another, less pleasant kind of action. I realized that Jamie and I needed to get our affairs in order. All the memoirs emphasized how horrible it was to deal with cold logistics at a time of shock and grief.

“You know,” I said to Jamie, “we really need to update our wills.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” he answered.

“We’ve been saying that we should for
years,
and we really need to.”

“Okay.”

“We’re never going to feel like doing it, so we just have to decide to
do
it.”

“Yes, you’re right!” he said. “I’m agreeing with you. Let’s get something on the calendar.”

And we did. Zoikes, there’s nothing like seeing the words
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
in lawyerly, old-fashioned typewriter-style Courier font to act as a memento mori. And although it sounds supremely unromantic, rarely have I felt such love for Jamie as I did in that lawyer’s office. I was so grateful for the fact that he was alive and strong and that the wills seemed like play documents that would never matter.

With our wedding anniversary approaching on September 4, it occurred to me that a (slightly grim) way to mark the occasion would be to use our anniversary as an annual prompt to review our situation. Were our wills up-to-date? Did Jamie and I both have access to the financial information that the other person routinely handled? I knew offhand that Jamie had no idea where I kept our tax or insurance information or the girls’ birth certificates. I should probably mention that to him. Repeating this “Be Prepared Day” review annually on our anniversary would keep it from seeming morbid—instead, it would be an ordinary expression of family responsibility.

Along the same lines, one night, as I lay reading in bed after Jamie had fallen asleep, I finished Joan Didion’s
The Year of Magical Thinking,
about the first year after her husband’s death. As I closed the book, I was overwhelmed with thankfulness at the fact that Jamie, snoozing gently beside me, was safe for now. Why did I get so irritated when he waited for me to change Eleanor’s diaper? Why did I keep complaining about his failure to return my e-mails? Let it go!

I felt a bit guilty about my reaction to these memoirs of catastrophe. Was it wrong to feel reassured by reading about these sorrowful events? Viewed one way, there was a ghoulish quality to this downward comparison—a
schadenfreude-ish exploitation, however benign, of other people’s anguish. But the feeling of happy relief that came from recognizing my good fortune (for the moment) was something most of these writers had sought to create. Over and over, they emphasized the importance of cherishing health and appreciating ordinary life. (Other themes: keep up with your doctor’s appointments, don’t ignore big changes in your body, make sure you have health insurance.)

That said, I don’t think these memoirs would cheer me if I’d had more brushes with serious illness; I don’t think I’d be able to
stand
reading them. Jamie, for one, would never read these books. He’s had too many unpleasant experiences in hospitals to want to visit voluntarily, even through the lives of other people.

KEEP A GRATITUDE NOTEBOOK.

Reading catastrophe memoirs made me extremely grateful for the fact that I wasn’t experiencing a catastrophe. Research shows that because we measure ourselves relative to others, our happiness is influenced by whether we compare ourselves to people who are better or worse off. In one study, people’s sense of life satisfaction changed dramatically depending on whether they completed sentences starting “I’m glad I’m not…” or instead, “I wish I was…” In the days after September 11, 2001, the emotion people most commonly experienced—after compassion—was gratitude.

Gratitude is important to happiness. Studies show that consistently grateful people are happier and more satisfied with their lives; they even feel more physically healthy and spend more time exercising. Gratitude brings freedom from envy, because when you’re grateful for what you have, you’re not consumed with wanting something different or something more. That, in turn, makes it easier to live within your means and also to be generous to others. Gratitude fosters forbearance—it’s harder to feel disappointed with someone when you’re feeling grateful toward him or her.
Gratitude also connects you to the natural world, because one of the easiest things to feel grateful for is the beauty of nature.

But I find it hard to stay in a grateful frame of mind—I take things for granted, I forget what other people have done for me, I have high expectations. To cure this, following the advice repeated by many happiness experts, I started a gratitude notebook. Each day, I noted three things for which I was grateful. Usually I logged my gratitude entries at the same time that I made my daily notes in my one-sentence journal. (These various tasks were making me happier, but they were also keeping me busier.)

After keeping the notebook for a week, I noticed something: I never thought to mention some of the most important bases of my happiness. I took for granted that I lived in a stable, democratic society; that I could always count on my parents’ love, support, and general lack of craziness; the fact that I loved my work; the health of my children; the convenience of living right around the corner from my in-laws—not to mention the fact that I loved living right around the corner from my in-laws, a situation that many people might consider undesirable. I loved living in an apartment instead of a house: no yard work, no shoveling snow, no going outside to get the newspaper in the morning, no carrying out the trash. I was grateful that I would never again have to study for an exam or a standardized test. I tried to push myself to appreciate better the fundamental elements of my life, as well as the problems that I
didn’t
have.

For example, one morning after Jamie had one of his regular appointments with his liver doctor, he still hadn’t called me by lunchtime. Finally I called him. “So what did the doctor say?”

“No change,” he said absentmindedly.

“What does that mean, ‘No change’?”

“Well, nothing has changed.”

Usually I wouldn’t have given this report much thought, but pondering gratitude and reading catastrophe memoirs made me realize—what a happy day. No news is
fantastic
news. It got a starred entry in my gratitude notebook. I was mindful of being grateful, too, for all the bad fortune that
had narrowly passed me by: the near miss on a bridge on an icy road, the time Eliza dreamily walked out into busy traffic before I could stop her.

Blog readers recounted their experiences with their own versions of a happiness notebook:

But after two weeks of keeping a gratitude notebook, I realized that although gratitude boosts happiness, my gratitude notebook wasn’t having that effect anymore. It had started to feel forced and affected, and instead of putting me in a grateful frame of mind, it made me annoyed. Later, I read a study that suggested I might have had better luck with my gratitude notebook if I had kept it twice a week instead of every day; expressing gratitude less often seemed to keep it more meaningful. But by then I’d soured on the task. I gave it up.

Because my gratitude notebook didn’t work, I had to find other ways to cultivate gratitude. I tied the action of typing my password into my computer to a moment of gratitude; while I waited for my computer to wake up from its slumber, I thought grateful thoughts. This gratitude meditation had the same effect as a gratitude notebook, but somehow it didn’t bug me. (Speaking of “gratitude meditation,” I noticed that if I put the word “meditation” after any activity, it suddenly seemed much more high-minded and spiritual: when waiting for the bus, I’d tell myself I was doing “bus-waiting meditation” in the slow line at the drugstore, I was doing “waiting-in-line meditation.”) I worked harder to appreciate my ordinary day. This thought arose most naturally when I put the girls to bed. I give Eleanor her sippy cup of milk, then cuddle her in my lap as I rock her to sleep. With Eliza, after Jamie has read to her from Harry Potter for half an hour, I go snuggle with her for fifteen minutes or so. We lie together on her bed, her head on my shoulder, and talk. I tried to appreciate the seasons more, too—to notice, in the midst of concrete and cabs, the color of the sky, the quality of light, the flowers in window boxes. “There is, indeed,” wrote Samuel Johnson, “something inexpressibly pleasing in the annual renovation of the world, and the new display of the treasures of nature.”

When I was feeling a distinct
lack
of gratitude, I tried to cure it by applying my Third Commandment to “Act the way I want to feel.” Could I turn complaints into thankfulness? When I felt annoyed at having to take
Eleanor for her pediatrician’s checkup, I told myself, “I feel grateful for taking Eleanor to the doctor.” The crazy thing is—it worked! How disappointed I’d be if someone else took her. One sleepless morning, I was wide awake at 3:00
A.M
., and at 4:00, instead of continuing to toss and fume, I told myself, “I feel grateful for being awake at 4:00.” I got up, made myself some tea, and headed to my dark, quiet office. I lit my orange-blossom-scented candle and settled in—knowing that I’d have no interruptions for at least two hours. Instead of starting my day feeling frustrated or groggy, I started my day with a feeling of tranquility and accomplishment. Voilà! A complaint turned into thankfulness.

I’d been spending a lot of time thinking about trying to be more grateful. Then one hot Sunday afternoon, when we were at the pool with Jamie’s parents, Eliza said to me, “You know what I was just thinking? ‘I’m in the pool, it’s summer, I’m seven years old, I’m wearing a very cute bathing suit, and my grandmother is asking me if I want anything to eat or drink.’” By which she meant: Life doesn’t get better than this.

“I know exactly what you mean,” I replied.

IMITATE A SPIRITUAL MASTER.

One of the most universal spiritual practices is the imitation of a spiritual master as a way to gain understanding and discipline. Christians, for example, study Thomas à Kempis’s
Imitation of Christ
and ask, “What would Jesus do?” In the secular world, I believe, people often read biographies for spiritual reasons: they want to study and learn from the example of great lives, whether those of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Oprah Winfrey, or Warren Buffett. That desire had certainly been one of the reasons why I’d wanted to write biographies myself. Now I decided to study and imitate a new spiritual master—but whom? I asked blog readers what spiritual masters they followed.