A short while ago I started a blog post by saying that I was depressed about the book The Happiness Project. I felt that I knew what the book was about and that I could have written it but now that it was written by someone else, my idea for a self-help book was taken. I said I was "depressed" as a humourous play upon the title of the book -- it seems counter-intuitive that a book about happiness would make someone depressed, right?
Except now that I have finished reading the book, the joke's on me: I actually am depressed about it. It was a sad read, in parts, because it was abundantly clear to me that the author doesn't really understand the secret of happiness. I don't feel like the book came to any conclusions on how to be happy in a lasting way. I think the book managed to get published because she was already a published author, so she had connections, and because the publishers were cashing in on what author Gretchen Rubin mentions as "stunt genre journalism", in this case, doing something for a year and then writing about it.
Before I delve into my criticisms, the book was not without merit. There are little nuggets of inspiration, like when Gretchen drastically improves her drawing ability by taking a class that gave her profound anxiety. I would be surprised if anyone could read The Happiness Project without feeling inspired to go outside her comfort zone and do something new.
But the inspiration ended there.
Basically, Gretchen wants to be happier. Her husband doesn't understand why she wants to be happier because she seems happy to him but it becomes clear before long, as she describes many insufferable habits and traits of her own, that she's not really happy.
So, instead of digging deep, getting at the root of her issues, she makes monthly theme resolutions, travelling the surface streets of why she's obnoxious, putting a superficial band-aid on her flaws.
This is not a book to read if you're looking to identify with someone else's unhappiness to have a "light bulb moment" about your own, unless you really are so uncomplicated and flawless that your only source of unhappiness is not enough extra-curricular busyness in your life, in which case you don't need to read a book to solve that problem. If she were relaying her poor behaviour so that she could follow it up with an explanation of the root reason for her behaviour and what she realised about herself and how that realisation changed her, then this book would be a worthwhile pursuit. Instead, it reads like a confessional journal, a list of sins and the penance that followed, and the lack of profundity made me sad. I felt uncomfortable for her knowing that this self-flagellation was not bringing her any lasting insight into why she was unhappy with herself.
For example, on page 266 she starts,
"... I realized I had one particular characteristic that I urgently needed to control: I was too belligerent. The minute someone made a statement, I looked for ways to contradict it. When someone happened to say to me, 'Over the next fifty years, it's the relationship with China that will be most important to the United States,' I started searching my mind to think of counterexamples. Why? ....I know very little about the subject."
She goes on to say that criticizing is "deliciously satisfying", that it made her feel more sophisticated and intelligent. She describes herself as a "know-it-all" who strives to drop literary observations to appear intelligent, a "topper" who tops other people's stories with a bigger and better one, and a "deflater" who finds something negative to say about things that other people were excited about.
On page 269 she describes the difficulty she had with trying to squelch her inclinations,
"Giving positive reviews requires humility. I have to admit, I missed the feelings of superiority that I got from using puncturing humor, sarcasm, ironic asides, cynical comments, and cutting remarks. A willingness to be pleased requires modesty and even innocence -- easy to deride as mawkish and sentimental."
On page 272 she describes a situation where her daughter is throwing up and she asks her husband to get a towel. He brings the towel and she says, "Folks, that was not the fastest action we could have had." She then asks why she tossed out that negative comment, but doesn't give the answer.
Answering the whys proves difficult for her throughout the book. She's able to narrow behaviour down as being prideful (and I admire her for her frankness) but she doesn't analyse the source of the pride.
So, without really knowing (or divulging) the source of her problems, she decides that to fix these character flaws she will give up drinking because it enables her belligerence, and she will force herself to be like Pollyanna for a week, including wearing a bracelet to remind her to remember about "Pollyanna Week". Pollyanna Week succeeds in cutting down her negative comments for that week and has "lasting effects" later, which she doesn't describe. I immediately noted the irony in going about being less negative by... negative reinforcement. "Stop saying negative things." That's not a positive approach. It's like trying to lose weight by saying, "I hate being fat. I'm going to stop being fat," instead of "I miss feeling thin and I'm going to be thin again."
(And besides, my theory is that the people around us will well tolerate our negative attributes if there are simply more positive ones than negative. Everyone is negative sometimes. We don't need to zip our mouths and be as perfect as impossible. We just need to be more positive than negative. If we're enthusiastic a lot of the time, people will forgive us for being critical some of the time. If we are frequently celebratory of our friends' successes and interests, people will better tolerate when we indulge in self-absorption for a while.)
Why didn't she just work on being more loving? Because, by her own assertion, it was "vague" as well as being harder to fake. Negative comments were easier for her to spot and measure. It's easier to stop doing something bad than to start doing something good, but... if you can succeed in being more good (instead of merely acting more good), then you have a more lasting change than the one you have by merely willing yourself to stop being bad.
As well, giving up drinking and getting more sleep is great, but not everyone who drinks or is tired is belligerent. Why is she this way under the influence when some other people are silly and more gregarious when they're boozy or tired? She doesn't ask that question.
It seems to me that the source of many of her problems is basic insecurity. She resolves early on to "Be Gretchen" and throughout the book when she runs up against insecurities, the insecurities are solved by her mantra to "Be Gretchen". So, the lesson here for the reader, when having troubles with insecurities: Be yourself. Problem solved. Why didn't you think of that, Reader?
At one point (and I can't find the page) she asks "Why?" about her behaviour and then says she has no idea.
Finally, she admits that her Happiness Project made her more judgmental of others for not being happy.
I wonder if she would have had the discipline to keep up with all her resolutions, if she would have challenged herself to take a drawing class that gave her panicky anxiety if she was not doing it for book fodder. Without the resolutions, there would be no story to tell, really, so it seems that the book is in existence for the book's sake.
The strange thing is that she's obviously a very intelligent woman who seems introspective enough that I do believe she is capable of getting to the heart of the matter of her problems, of asking the important questions and getting real answers. I just don't understand why she didn't do it for the book. I guess it just wasn't the style of book she was looking to write or HarperCollins was looking to publish?
Further, what made me sad was reading of Gretchen's struggle to love herself and others in a pure, unshakable way that comes from God and comes from a deep-seated knowledge of the value of another soul. She describes her life as having been fairly easy, her childhood being happy, and she even sounds insecure about that in about three places where she wishes she had hardship to draw on to give herself "legitimacy". I suspect that her happy upbringing is why she struggles to have true compassion for others without having to talk herself into it so much. Compassion is hard to come by without experience. It's easy to have an intellectual awareness of the need to cut people some slack, it's easy to repeat to one's self: "Everyone is doing the best they can." but it's quite another to feel that understanding of another person's soul because it comes from a place of experience.
On page 259 she said,
"Along with a more humorous attitude, I wanted to be kinder. I'd considered kindness a respectable but bland virtue... but researching Buddhism, with its emphasis on loving-kindness, had convinced me that I'd overlooked something important."
Important? Ya think? Wow. "...a respectable but bland virtue"? That really threw me. In my world, and in much of the world's religions, kindness is a branch of love, which is the most important commandment, the flavour of life, our raison d'être. How can kindness ever be bland as an idea or a manifestation?
"I wanted to practice loving-kindness but it was such a vague goal -- easy to applaud but hard to apply. What strategies would remind me to act with loving-kindness in my ordinary day? ...Perhaps mere politeness wouldn't engender loving-kindness in me, but acting politely would at least give me the appearance of possessing that quality -- and perhaps appearance would turn into reality."
Am I the only one who sees the problems with this paragraph?
The entire book is sprinkled with talk of "strategies", with wishful thinking, with "perhaps"s and "maybe"s and "acting". Is it possible that she does not see that true happiness does not come from acting kind but being kind?
On page 275 she says,
".... if I keep my resolutions and do the things that make me happier, I end up feeling happier and acting more virtuously. Do good, feel good; feel good, do good."
Again, she describes "acting" instead of "being". Tsk. And besides that, how is this a revelation worth publishing a book about? Hey, this just in folks: If you keep up resolutions for things you know you should do, it will make you happier. So, keep up your resolutions, okay? Tell us something we don't know, right? Like, how to keep those resolutions without merely gritting our teeth and digging our heels in. I know that if I would be kinder to Jim-Bob that I would feel better and that feeling better would then make it easier for me to be kinder to Jim-Bob. But how do I get the momentum to do something I don't really want to do, and won't he sense the falseness anyway?
This is why she finds it so easy to judge other people's behaviours -- she doesn't focus on the heart, she focuses on the outward appearance. If it's so easy for her to change her behaviour (um, easy because she has to or she doesn't have book fodder), then other people should be able to as well.
This was the only preconceived expectation I had when starting this book -- that she would strive to change herself by merely digging her feet in and, with sheer willpower, change her habits. I was otherwise expecting to enjoy this book. I am blown away by its superficiality and its inability to inspire me or to change anyone in a profound, lasting way. Its methodical layout, its quotes from philosophers, its articulate writing, and its New York Times bestseller's list placement does not trick me into thinking it's a life-changing book. The only reason it changed Gretchen's life was because she was writing a book. It serves as more of a mostly humour-less journal, really. It couldn't even be categorised under "self-help".
I find it profound that in the last chapter she asks her husband if her happiness project has made him happier at all. He answers, "Nope." Then she says, "But he had changed" and explains all the changes. But... that doesn't mean he's happier. Maybe he wasn't happier because he was already happy. Maybe he was happy being the kind of man who doesn't reply to her emails. Maybe he was happy not doing the things that would make her happier if he would just do them. Maybe he was happy in his imperfections... and hers. Maybe it's just Gretchen who thinks that happiness can be found in resolutions, in gold stars, in being likable.
I felt like I was reading my own journey to discovering the secret to happiness, from when I was in my early 20's. At one point I actually thought it would be a good idea to make a list of all my negative qualities and all the bad things I did. Why I thought this would be beneficial escapes my recollection. And maybe it's this reminder that made me so sad. Maybe if I didn't identify with what I see as her confusion, I wouldn't even notice it.
I think it's the idea of happiness that attracts people enough to make this a best-selling book. Bite-sized blog posts about the topic are interesting to most of us, but I expected a book to be more substantial.
(Needless to say, I am no longer bummed out that someone else wrote my book. The Happiness Project has made it easier for me to write what I need to write about, to fill in the gaps, to explore the human psyche, as pretentious as that sounds. Am I qualified? Sure. What makes Tiger Woods qualified to teach about golf is that he's good at golf. I'm good at introspection and answering tough questions honestly. My friends should expect much badgering from me for their experiences and opinions. :-) As well, there are many works to read as reference, such as Voltaire's Candide. So far, I'm only about 5000 words into my book writing but I have an outline and an inkling and a nanny. I just need some sleep, some time, some privacy, and a writerly mood. It's the passionate mood that's so hard to come by and without it, writing is so excruciating and never as good. So, we'll see.)
