Happiness project - Monthly update | Jan 2025

This is the first of the monthly updates on my 2025 happiness learning project. I’ll try to keep a replicable format for these updates. Do let me know in the comments if you’d like me to cover anything else in a separate section the next time.

Progress update

On the happiness project, January started slow for me. At the start of the month, I spoke to a lot of folks about why am I doing it and what I plan to do. My main reason was very simple: spending time with the topic will help me personally. Even if I don’t produce anything out of the project, I’d learn a lot. Articulating this reason made me realise that it’s more of a learning project than a research endeavour. It may turn out to be a research project but that’s for later.

In January, I sketched a structure and put up goals for the project. I’m planning to spend the first three months in open-ended learning, the next three months specifying questions and trying to answer those and at the six-month mark, I’ll plan for outputs.

Hand on heart, I made very little progress on the quantifiable goals. I think the primary reason behind it was that I didn’t maintain visibility on all goals. It was more an issue of not being methodical rather than not finding the time or energy. I feel that’s relatively easier to course correct in the next month.

3 concepts learnt in the month

First: at times, we could choose to be unhappy. No person will accept that they willingly choose to be unhappy. However, being unhappy could serve some purpose. We could choose to be unhappy to appear intellectual, cool, selfless or creative or to be perceived as someone with depth in character. In contrast, chasing happiness could be perceived to be frivolous and self-serving. Unhappiness could be wielded to control others, to claim pity and attention, or as an excuse to justify one’s lack of achievement. Being happy requires energy and effort. We could also fall prey to superstitions around being happy and instead choose to deny our happiness. The one who chooses to be unhappy in these or other ways cannot improve his/her happiness simply because they don’t want to.

Second: synthesized happiness is as real as natural happiness. Over time, people’s happiness levels can revert to their baseline even after experiencing extreme trauma like war, losing all wealth, crippling medical illness, wrongful imprisonment, etc. or extremely good fortune like winning a lottery, getting high professional recognition, marrying the love of your life, the birth of a child, etc. This baseline can be manipulated in simple ways if practised over long durations.

Third: Methodically tackling aspects that lead to or detract from happiness can alter how happy you feel. Health, work, relationships, money, spirituality, and hobbies can be worked on. Improvement in these aspects of your life does improve your happiness. In a way, this is an exercise in mindfulness and habit-building which can pay good dividends. You could start with one area at a time and move to the next once you’ve made good progress on the current one.

Happiness mantras

Choose to be happy.

One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to make yourself happy - Gretchen Rubin

To be happy, you need to consider feeling good, feeling bad and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth - Gretchen Rubin

Content

1. [Book] The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin - Almost done. Find my notes here.

2. [Book] The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness - Halfway through. Find my notes here.

3. [Video] The surprising science of happiness by Dan Gilbert - Find my notes here.

Happiness project resources

A public notion board is maintained here. :)