Book Review – The Happiness Project.

🔥 🚀 the book in 3 sentences

It is a book that makes you think about the importance of happiness, appreciation of the current happy moments and tries to explore how we can improve our happiness
It teaches us to be grateful for our lives.
If followed, it has a map of happiness that can improve our lives’ happiness quotient.

🎨 impressions

I have found this book to be a good read, it is all happiness (to the point that it gets annoying).
During one of the train rides the author asks herself if she is really happy. If that question is asked to me, I too would say yes but the absence of the problems – such as health, financial, or relationship crisis, should not be termed as happiness. What is the evidence of your happiness? What can we do for our happiness? What are the conscious steps we can take to improve our happiness? All these questions are answered in this book.

👤 who should read it?

I read about this book in one of the newsletters I subscribed to. It came as a highly recommended book. Anyone who lacks appreciation for their current life should surely read through this.

🔥 ✍️ my top 3 quotes

Friendship is a key to happiness, and sure, I wanted to strengthen my friendships
Oscar Wilde observed, “One is not always happy when one is good, but one is always good when one is happy.”
We’ve all heard of Dr. Elisabeth kübler-ross’s five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. By contrast, I realized, that happiness has four stages. To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.

☘️ how the book changed me

The author writes to keep specific resolutions each month of the year that will boost happiness. Atomic Habits book teaches us that a resolution can only be kept if we can make it a habit, and a habit can only stick if it can be part of our daily routines. So I was wondering how many of these authors’ resolutions I may be already abiding by in some sense, and how many of them I have to newly add to my day. Let’s jump in.

January: Boost Energy Vitality

Go to sleep earlier. – with a baby of 1 year, this looks a bit difficult to absorb in my day-to-day life. I am trying to get up before 8 am which I know isn’t a lot. I used to go to sleep by 11 pm but that time got pushed to midnight and some more.
Exercise better. – this is an activity; I am proud to say is part of my day nowadays. Recently I have started focusing on exercise, even before I read this book, to improve my energy for the day. I have given a detailed log of my exercise in the blog here
Toss, restore, organize. – I liked this. Cleanliness is godliness. I work from home most of the time and I ensure the area where I work, is clean. I even ensure that my desktop is clean and that my files are properly named and saved under the right hierarchy. It takes only a minute.
Tackle a nagging task. – I must admit, this is a pain area for me. I don’t attack the pending task. Be it in the office or home. I know the strategies that help with this sort of behavior. I should have a deadline for each task. I should plan for a highlight of the day for difficult tasks. Even with my Notion’s task manager in place, I need to improve here.
Act more energetically. – most of the time, the reason I don’t work on a nagging task is due to the “ I don’t feel like it” dialogue. I should try to act energetic to feel more energetic ( fake it till u make it). I think I can try this.

February: Remember Marriage

Though this chapter was specifically focused on spouses, I would generalize the recommendation for all my relationships. Be it mother and son, brother, or a spouse. I would want to be better at all of them.

Quit nagging – I want to remember this. I tend to nag a person when something that I ask doesn’t get complete. I should remember not to nag a person anymore
Don’t expect praise or appreciation. – I have been trying to follow this even before I read the book. It is really frustrating when you are expecting a pat on the back and you don’t get it. I have learned that you should do your tasks as part of your responsibilities. If you consider everything as your responsibility, then you forget the focus on appreciation and praise.
Fight right. – No matter how much you avoid it, there will be a time when there is an argument between two people. I have learned from my relationships that you should never be focused on winning. Nobody really wins in an argument… you should try to understand if your points are valid in the first place. You should try to put your point in front of the other person with the right justifications. There is no harm in learning from the person that you are with when you are wrong. This advice applies to all of our relationships and not just between husband and wife.
Give proof of love- Love should not be restricted only to special days. You should express your love to your wife more often than wait till Valentine’s Day. You should express your love for your mother and not wait for Mother’s Day. This is a beautiful concept and I’m surely going to implement it consciously.

March: Aim Higher Work

This resolution is intended to improve the productivity of a person in a personal and official capacity.

Launch a blog- while I already have a running blog, I’m actively thinking of starting a series on my blog about the work that I do.

Enjoy the fun of failure.; ask for help; work smart- I agree that we should not be afraid of failures and never shy away from asking for guidance or help. The explosion of AI tools has really made working smart easy for us.

Enjoy now- as always in life as well as in the office, you should never bask in the past glory. Living the moment and moving on.

April: Lighten Up Parenthood

Sing in the morning – now I know songs have the magic of putting anyone in a good mood. I know how my 1-year-old son loves hearing his baby songs in the morning. So I know this might work for someone. But I am not a singing or morning person. I love to be seriously thinking about my day ahead than sing. Even though I am driving, I would not put music on most of the time. So, it can be good advice to be happy from the get-go but I don’t think I can implement it.
Acknowledge the reality of people’s feelings. – This is a very valid point. You should not put your feelings on your kid or spouse. I think it is important to acknowledge that people might feel differently than what you feel. That is in fact the beauty of life, that everyone can think differently and enrich each other’s lives. We should acknowledge the way a person is feeling rather than dismiss it.
Be a treasure house of happy memories- I do this via Google Photos. There is a memory feature in Google Photos, that throws random, date-wise, and person-wise memories. It can create videos out of it. I love seeing these memories, sharing them with my family, and spreading the joy of remembering someone special or enjoying a blast from the past.
Take time for projects – I really wanted to do the budget wheelchair patent project but I could not find enough time for it. Well, maybe in the near future, I can do something about it.

May: Be Serious About Play Leisure

I didn’t find this section of the book, really appealing. I felt as a parent of 1 year old, there is plenty of time to have fun with the kid. So there is no time for finding new hobbies for me. No takeaway for me but for you, you might want to read through in detail when you read the book.

Find more fun; take time to be silly; go off the path and start a collection.

June: Make Time For Friends’ Friendship

This was seriously a wake-up call that I needed. I tried setting some targets for connecting with friends more often, but I was not very successful. Now after reading this chapter, I have been ever so serious about being a good friend. I have not only set up a habit of ensuring I connect to 2 of my friends each week, consciously.

Remember birthdays – fb helps me do this well. I ensure I wish my friends at least on the WhatsApp group, which sometimes I was not doing earlier.
Be generous – I want to be generous with my time with my friends. Sometimes, I used to cut the call short due to a shortage of time but no more.
Don’t gossip – yeah it is a good commandment to remember. If friends know you gossip, you will not be a good friend for a long time. To be a good friend, one must not gossip.
Make three new friends – yup, done. I have taken this as a goal for a year as well.
Show up – always show up for your friends. I am going to follow this till the time I die.

July: Buy Some Happiness Money

Again, I am not very convinced about all the activities mentioned in this chapter, and Your Money Your Life book is to blame for it. But I did like some of the advice

Indulge in a modest splurge – per year, I am going to indulge in a modest splurge. I have been tracking each penny being spent per month. I am trying to see how my expenditure can be reduced and investments can be increased so that eventually I don’t have to be dependent on my salary alone for a good quality lifestyle.
Buy needful things; spend out.
Give something up – I too believe charity is an important concept of life. You should be able to give something that is required for your life and not so required for your life. You should not always give up something that you don’t want in your life, you should also part ways with something that you have and use it but you know someone needs it more than you. So considering this, I donate a portion of my salary each month to a cause.

August: Contemplate Heaven’s Eternity

Hmm apart from “imitate a spiritual master” I didn’t find any advice hard-hitting for me. Read memoirs of catastrophes- I don’t like to read about pains.

Keep a gratitude notebook – as part of my journal entries, I try to keep a gratitude journal. As much as possible I write it every day.
Imitate a spiritual master – I want to follow Sri Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I have always found solace in his voice and meditation series.

September: Pursue A Passion Book

Yes. This I found a lot closer to my heart. I knew about this Nanowrimo competition already. It is about trying to complete a 50k-word novel in the Nov month. I honestly did try but I couldn’t finish in my past attempts. So I will plan for it sometime later in life. It is an interesting idea and you would be amazed how people manage to achieve great things in tight deadlines.

Write a novel.
Make time – Apart from the Make Time book, there was an interesting idea in the book. 15 mins of time. We generally wait for a long stretch of time to complete a task. Say I need 2 hours for some research or writing my notes etc. We shrug it off saying we simply don’t have enough time at hand today. These types of tasks can be further broken down into small chunks of slots which we can then complete as and when we get time. If you want to write a blog of 1000 words, don’t wait for 1-hour slot, write a paragraph in 15 min, and plan to write at least in 3 slots of 15 mins. You would be surprised how often we put ourselves in the middle of the goal that we are trying to achieve.
Forget about results. – I have been trying to do this. I want to ensure that I follow the process. I don’t really bother about results. Now I will admit that I started blogging to earn some passive income, but eventually, for almost a year there has been not a single penny, and yet I am thoroughly enjoying writing my blog on the website.
Master a new technology. – This is a tick for me. I’m learning how to master the power BI tool and have recently completed ALM tool training.

October: Pay Attention To Mindfulness

Here author and I had a disagreement. The author did not find meditation helpful but I find it extremely good for life. So apart from keeping the food diary, I did not find any resolution worthy to act.

Meditate on koans; Examine true rules; Stimulate the mind in new ways.
Keep a food diary. – One of the key challenges of this year is to follow my diet. There is a particular diet that I follow which enables me to eat only twice a day and I should avoid any kind of sugar. Till Q2 I have not been very good at keeping my diet. Every time I have been telling myself that we should focus on ensuring strict adherence to my diet but it is not happening. This one particular idea really started to help me. During my daily journal, I started to write what I have eaten. For my diet adherence review, I have broken it down to weekly which was earlier quarterly. This has been helpful and I am hoping this new approach helps me come closer to my goal.

November: Keep A Contented Heart Attitude

Laugh out loud. – I prefer watching comedy shows and standup over any drama shows.
Use good manners. – This was inculcated into me by my mom a long time ago. Say thank you and please to all you meet and especially to those who look up to you. A small gesture done with a heart makes a big impact.
Give positive reviews. I completely agree but I would slightly tweak it as Good honest feedback ( no Positive or no Negative intensions). Your aim should be to help the person and remember If your feedback doesn’t help someone improve then it is criticism.
Find an area of refuge. – Emotionally I find refuge in my mother. I tried to think or ask her views. She is my mentor and guide

December: Boot Camp Perfect Happiness

Boot camp perfect – Here author tried to relive the entire year’s changes in this month by trying to follow as many of these resolutions as possible. For me, I feel we can use the sprint approach. We can take 5 days of the week and try to follow a few new resolutions and see if that makes any difference in our happiness. Life is all about experiment.

In Summary, here are the new resolutions I will be following

Tackle a nagging task
Act more energetically
Fight right.
Give proof of love
Make time for friends and friendship
Keep a gratitude notebook
Imitate a spiritual master
Keep a food diary

So that was my review and that was my commitment to follow a few additional resolutions to add happiness to my life. How about you? How many of these resolutions resonated with you?

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