Books I Planned to Hate, Part 1: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

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This is the first in a two part series, "Books I Planned to Hate." Check back for Part 2, featuring Gary Thomas's book Sacred Marriage. 
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A few weeks ago I had an unexpected delay at LaGuardia and as a result I ran out of reading material. Hudson News was particularly under-stocked, which left me with two choices, Moneyball or The Happiness Project. I was just about to reach for Moneyball until I remembered that I hate baseball, and the cover photo of Brad Pitt wasn't enough of an incentive to make up for that.

So it was with some hesitation that I picked up Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, a stunt genre kind of memoir. (Stunt genre is a term I picked up from Rubin: it's a descriptor for the type of book or blog where the author spends a year writing and doing something extreme. The Year of Living Biblicaly by AJ Jacobs is a great example, and a great read. Also Julie and Julia.) Rubin tackles things that will make her happier, one area at a time, month by month.

I was prepared to hate this book. Happiness is a bad measure of a marriage - or a life's - worth, meaning, success, character or substance. (I've covered my thoughts on that in a previous post, If You're Not Happy and You Know It, Read This Blog.) I suspected that reading the story of one uber-educated, wealthy New Yorker's year-long pursuit at being more happy would have the opposite effect on me, instead convincing me that the world was a shallow, gimmick-filled place. This is especially true as I'm mindful that Rubin (like me) is almost certainly in the top 85% of the world's wealthiest people. (Don't be shocked, you probably are too: test the theory here.)

But about three hours into the ridiculously long airport delay (which was not caused by weather on the ground in Chicago, no matter what United had to say about it), I had to admit that Rubin's book was charming, self-effacing, and (in some modest way) important.

Relationship Takeaways 

Rubin comments that the atmosphere of your marriage sets the weather for your whole life. With that in mind, almost every observation and resolution in the book could be seen as a reflection of your marriage. I'll share a few observations that I found to have particular resonance:

Develop Gratitude: Rubin's husband, Jamie, struggles at first to understand the nature of the happiness project: if you're not unhappy, why are you doing this? he asks. She replies, "I am happy - but I'm not as happy as I should be. I have such a good life, I want to appreciate it more - and live up to it better. ... I complain too much, I get annoyed more than I should. I should be more grateful. I think if I felt happier, I'd behave better."

I can relate to that. The inner monologue in my head is often one of griping rather than gratitude. And unnecessarily so: I'm surrounded by people who love me and have all the things I need, and more. Why do I let my mind dwell on the frustrations so much? And wouldn't I be happier, and behave better, if I didn't? 

Act More Energetic: One of Rubin's Twelve Commandments is to act the way she wants to feel, because usually acting one way leads you to actually feel that way. One reasonable piece of marital advice I've heard is to act like you want to have sex when your spouse makes an advance, and you'll probably find out you actually do. I suppose it also applies elsewhere: act like you want to hear about his Fantasy Football team, and it might actually become more interesting as he talks. Act like you want to hear about her mom's unimportant doctor's appointment, and you might actually remember you care about your mother-in-law. 

What You Do Every Day Matters: Rubin observes that she'd eagerly give her husband a kidney without a moment's hesitation, but she is intensely annoyed if he asks her to pick something up at the drugstore. Once again, I can relate to that. But it's not the grand gestures of love that define a relationship, it's the day-in-day-out support for one another. This relates to the next takeaway:

Give Proofs of Love: No matter what you feel in your heart, it's your actions that are observed by others. Finding small, daily ways to give evidence of your love can strengthen your relationship. After noticing that she only emailed or texted her husband when she needed something, she made a point to begin sending messages that were quirky, encouraging or playful.

Cliff is especially good at these "proofs of love." He rarely returns from a work event without a goodie from the dessert table wrapped in a napkin. (He knows my love language is sugar.) 

Do Something Challenging or Novel: Unrelated to her marriage, Rubin decides to take on a personal challenge just for the fun of something new. It energizes her. We're all that way, right? We feel more alive when we're learning something, accomplishing something we didn't know we could do, or exploring the unusual. Shouldn't we do that as couples, too? 

One of my favorite bits of research is on this topic - called self-expansion. I wrote about it here. 

So does Rubin end the year of the happiness project feeling happier, she says she does (and hey, she got a book contract out of it, so I suppose she's right). Whether you will or not is up for grabs. It's not a fabulous book (at times I found her annoying and petty), but it is a good exploration of the happiness we already have in our lives, if we could just uncover it.

In conclusion, I have a litmus test to determine if you'll like this book: Think about any 1990s movie starring Meg Ryan. If you feel a hint of nostalgia, you'll like this book. If you feel a soul-crushing sense of anxiety, you should have bought Moneyball.