In the past week or so, I’ve had brushes with death by a speeding Audi, turning Pathfinder, and ambling 86 bus. Contrary to popular belief, my tendency to start my mornings with a healthy dose of K-Os, Marvin Gaye, Feist, or the ineffable Craig David (don’t repeat that, it’s a little embarrassing that I listen to “Fill Me In” on a regular basis) did not lead to my near-flattening. I finally found a book so good, so tailored to everyday life, so irresistible, that I’ve indulged in the habit of dreamy playground nerds everywhere: reading and walking.
The siren’s song leading to my demise is Gretchen Rubin’s
The Happiness Project, an intensely-readable quasi-how-to dedicated to one woman’s personal search, ensuing research, and action plan for inviting happiness into her life. Released December 29th, the
book is climbing the NYT bestseller list like a spider monkey and should become part of your permanent collection as soon as possible. Rubin, a Yale-educated lawyer-turned-writer, wife, mother of two, and successful writer sat on a bus in New York City several years ago and wondered what it was she wanted from this life. Her answer? The ubiquitous: happiness. Highly analytical by nature, Rubin set about devising a twelve month plan (one major theme or goal per month) with roughly five specific action items. She scored these on a resolution chart as developed by Benjamin Franklin, maintaining the former month’s behaviors and adding the new. The result? Rubin was able to change her lens on the world. The bottom line: if you think you’re happier, you’re happier, and those around you benefit. When they are happier, you in turn are happier. It behooves you, then, to do whatever it is you can (small actions are best) to improve your own happiness.
This book was absolute candy for my sunshiney, psych-oriented brain. For those of us who’ll be working with the “worried well” set, it’s an absolute treasure chest of actionable plans and potential “homework assignments”. For those of us who are the worried well…get thee to a bookstore. Pronto.
You can imagine my delight, then, upon discovering that Rubin would be speaking last Wednesday at the
Brookline Booksmith in Coolidge Corner. Determined to finish the book and follow along with Rubin’s conversation, book and highlighter in hand, I read at every possible juncture (taking breaks to beam mightily at strangers for no apparent reason. They’ll smile back, honestly! Even in Boston!). On Tuesday afternoon, I boarded a train bound for a meeting at Porter Square nose buried deep in The Book. At Central Square, an athletic-looking fellow boarded my car with a boom box pumping classics by the Jackson 5 (I couldn’t help it, I began to wiggle in my Wellingtons just a hair). Most of the train, nestled into their piles of down and fur in the stodgy winter colors New Englanders prefer (brown, grey, black, black, and black) hid in their collars and looked grumpy in the way that only a Masshole can. This kid, they presumed, was going to ask us for money. And they were right.
“Okay y’all,” he blasted, turning up “1, 2, 3” just a little bit louder, “Welcome to my show! If you like what you see, please make a donation at the end. But I promise, you’ve never seen nothing like this.” With the exception of myself and another at the end of the car, my fellow passengers looked…well, pissed.
What followed was one of the most amazing feats of physical ability every to grace public transportation. Our unflappable MBTA dynamo not only broke it down, but he shook it, flipped it, spun it, and shagged it. He danced up on the seats, the doors, the poles, the floors. He made Jamiroquai look like your grandma at a wedding. With a flourish, he grabbed poles on opposite sides of the aisle, flipped himself backwards, did something resembling three back handsprings as the train rounded the tricky corner between Central and Harvard stations, and managed to somehow reverse his motion with a forward piked somersault. Awesome. As he returned to his feet, he boomed over MJ, “Whew! Let’s get it going in here! Anyone want to see some more? If you do, say, ‘Dance, black guy!’” Unfettered by the constraints of being PC (sorry, Dalia, and Culture & Identity classmates), I hugged
The Happiness Project to my chest, clapped my hands like a three year old at the circus, and yelped, “DANCE, BLACK GUY!” The car full of mostly white passengers looked at me, horrified. Our intrepid performer laughed, came over, tapped the book in my arms and said, “Sister, you don’t need this.” I beamed…he danced…and people began to warm up. They couldn’t help themselves. They watched. They gasped. I danced around. He was awesome.
When we arrived at Porter just moments later, thirty people on the red line on a Tuesday afternoon had gone from scowling silence to clapping, cheering, and dancing. The man of the hour took his boom box on his shoulder and grabbed my hand, and we danced off the train together. We high-fived and parted ways. As he boarded a train headed back to the city, I thought, “Lucky them, they’re in for a treat…gosh, I hope someone on that car is reading
The Happiness Project.” I floated into my meeting, generally a snooze fest related to resume writing psych interns, and smiled quietly to myself. As Rubin reminds us, so easy to be heavy, so hard to be light.
I had hoped to share the story with Rubin last night, but I’m pleased to say her reading was full and her time was limited. I hope this whole book tour process of hers launches a national Happiness Movement, but that could just be how a former publicist turned proto-therapist dreams.
As I start Elizabeth Gilbert’s
Committed before seeing her on Friday, I leave you with only one small request: if you see a girl with glasses and a long brown braid with her nose an in orange book, please offer to help her cross the street. The written life is just too irresistible.
