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I first heard about this book by Gretchen Rubin in a Fred Wilson blog post from January 1st.  The topic of the post was New Year’s resolutions, which I don’t really find that interesting even though I force all 5 of you to read about mine, but something about it caught my attention.  See, what does interest me is why we think the way we do and how we can control how we act/feel.  You will see more of that as my reading list plays out because there will be a whole host of books that fall in to this genre.

My purpose behind reading about how the mind works is that I want to be able to use mine better.  I want to know why I’m angry or upset and be able to make those feelings stop.  I want to know how someone is trying to make me believe one thing and not fall for their tricks.  The crazies part is that almost all of these findings are the same no matter who you talk to.  It spreads across borders, across cultures, even across time.  There are fundamentally flawed systems in our brain that cause us to act in ways we don’t want to.  That’s fascinating!

But that’s not the topic for now so on to the book.  I really enjoyed this book and apparently so have a lot of other people as it’s up to #23 on the Amazon best seller list.  Since there are a lot of reviews out there that rehash the overall theme of the book I’m going to focus on the one piece I enjoyed most.  Not surprisingly it is from the November section of the book subtitled “Keep a Contented Heart” which is something I’ve been actively trying to do for the past couple weeks.  Quick tangent on that note: yoga, somehow both harder and easier than you’d think.

When I examined my reactions to other people, I realized that I do often view people who make critical remarks as more perceptive and more discriminating.  At the same time, though, it’s hard to find pleasure in the company of someone who finds nothing pleasing.

So there you go, discerning information for people who want to either be happier and make friends or become a world famous critic.

Just based on what I learned, I definitely recommend reading the book regardless of your current happiness level.  I think there’s a lot to be gained by simply understanding some of the underlying reasons for happiness.  And if nothing else, it’ll probably make you a lot more interested in someone like Benjamin Franklin, Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, or Samuel Johnson.  Click the link, buy the book.

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun