The Happiness Project (26 page)

I could hear the girls in the next room. “Mine!” “No, mine!” “Well, I was playing with it!” “Don’t push!” “You hurt my arm!” And so on.

I stormed into Jamie. “Get up! Are you just going to listen to that? Do you enjoy hearing that shrieking and hitting?”

Jamie rolled over and rubbed his eyes. He fixed me with a look that I interpreted to mean “I’m waiting for you to get yourself under control.”

“Don’t just lie there, this is
your
problem, too,” I snapped at him.

“What is?”

“Listen to Eliza and Eleanor! They’ve been like this all day. You fix it!”

“I’m sorry I’m not being helpful,” he said. “I just don’t know exactly what to do.”

“So you figured you’d wait for
me
to deal with it.”

“Of course,” he said, smiling. He held out his arms to me. (I knew from my February research that this was a “repair attempt.”)

“Are you giving me a gold star?” I lay down next to him on the bed.

“Yes,” he said. The yelling from the girls got louder, then ominously quiet. “Ah, the happy sounds of home.” We both started laughing.

“Are we in harmony?” he asked. “Even if I am a slacker napping husband?”

“I guess,” I said. I put my head against his chest.

“I’ll tell you what, let’s go to the park. We need to get outdoors.” He sat up and yelled, “Put your shoes on, you two! We’re going to the park.”

This announcement was greeted with wails of indignation: “Don’t wanna put on shoes!” “I don’t want to go the park!”

“Well, you’re going to. I’ll help you both get ready.”

It was one of those days—and there would be others. A happiness project was no magic charm. But that night I did manage to keep one resolution, “Go to sleep earlier,” and in the morning, things looked a little better. Although it took several days before my bad mood lifted completely, at least I was ready to tackle my resolutions again.

Contemplate the Heavens

E
TERNITY

Read memoirs of catastrophe.

Keep a gratitude notebook.

Imitate a spiritual master.

I
’d become firmly convinced that money could help buy happiness. Still, there was something unappealing about thinking about money too much; it made me feel grasping and small-minded. By the end of July, I was relieved to turn from the worldly subject of money to the spiritual realm.

I figured August was a particularly good time to focus on eternal things, because we’d be taking our family vacation. Stepping out of my usual routine would allow me to see more clearly the transcendent values that underlay everyday life. First, however, I had to figure out exactly what I wanted to achieve in my contemplation of eternity.

My upbringing wasn’t religious. As a child, I went to Sunday school when I visited my grandparents in Nebraska, and we celebrated Christmas and Easter with lots of decorations, but that was the extent of it. Then I married Jamie, who is Jewish. His upbringing had been about as religious as mine, and since we now had a “mixed” household, we had even less religion at home. We celebrated Christian holidays with my parents and Jewish holidays with his parents (which made both sets of parents very happy, because they never had to switch off ) and observed all holiday traditions in a very secular, Hallmark-y way.

Nevertheless, I’ve always been interested in learning about religion and in the experiences of devout people. I’d describe myself as a reverent agnostic. I’m attracted to belief, and through my reading, I enter into the spirit of belief. Also, although I’d never thought of myself as particularly spiritual, I’d come to see that spiritual states—such as elevation, awe, gratitude, mindfulness, and contemplation of death—are essential to happiness.

When I mentioned to Jamie that my focus for August was “Eternity,” he asked suspiciously, “You’re not going to engage in a lot of morbid activities, are you?”

That actually sounded intriguing.

“I don’t think so,” I answered. “Like what?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “But contemplating eternity sounds like something that might get tiresome for the rest of the family.”

“No,” I assured him. “No skulls on the coffee table, I promise.”

But I had to find some way to steer my mind toward the transcendent and the timeless, away from the immediate and the shallow. I wanted to cultivate a contented and thankful spirit. I wanted to appreciate the glories of the present moment and my ordinary life. I wanted to put the happiness of others before my own happiness. Too often, these eternal values got lost in the hubbub of everyday routines and selfish concerns.

Will focusing on spiritual matters make you happier? According to the research, yes. Studies show that spiritual people are relatively happier;
they’re more mentally and physically healthy, deal better with stress, have better marriages, and live longer.

READ MEMOIRS OF CATASTROPHE.

In
AD
524, while in prison awaiting execution, the philosopher Boethius wrote, “Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.” The challenges to my serenity were insignificant compared to execution, of course, but I wanted to cultivate the same sense of perspective so I could remain unruffled by petty annoyances and setbacks. I wanted to strengthen myself so I’d have the fortitude to face the worst, if (i.e., when) I had to. To achieve this, the great religious and philosophic minds urge us to think about death. As the Buddha counseled, “Of all mindfulness meditations, that on death is supreme.”

But I wasn’t sure how to go about meditating on death.

Medieval monks kept images of skeletons in their cells as memento mori. Sixteenth-century
vanitas
artists painted still lifes that included symbols of the brevity of life and the certainty of death, like guttering candles, hourglasses, rotten fruit, and bubbles. What could I do to achieve the heightened awareness that death and catastrophe bring—without putting that skull on the coffee table?

I hit on a memento mori that suited me: I’d read memoirs by people facing death.

I went to the library and checked out an enormous stack of books. I started by collecting accounts by people grappling with serious illness and death, but then I broadened my search to include any kind of catastrophe: divorce, paralysis, addiction, and all the rest. I hoped that it would be possible for me to benefit from the knowledge that these people had won with so much pain, without undergoing the same ordeals. There are some kinds of profound wisdom that I hope never to gain from my own experience.

August was a month of sunshine and vacation, which, because it made
such a stark contrast to the dark confidences of these books, was probably the best backdrop. The reassurance of being with my family made it easier to experience vicariously so much unhappiness and loss.

As we were packing for a trip to the beach, Jamie glanced at a few of the books I’d stuffed into our battered duffel bag.

“Is this really what you want to be reading while we’re away?” he said doubtfully as he scanned the book jackets. “Stan Mack on cancer, Gene O’Kelly on brain tumors, and Martha Beck on having a baby with Down syndrome?”

“I know, it seems like it would be incredibly depressing to read these books, but it’s not. It’s sad, but it’s also—well, I hate to say ‘uplifting,’ but they are uplifting.”

“Okay,” he shrugged, “whatever. I’m taking
A Bright Shining Lie
and
Middlemarch.
”

By the end of our trip, I’d finished every book I’d packed. I didn’t agree with Tolstoy’s observation that “Happy families are all alike,” but perhaps it was true that “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Although many of these memoirs described a similar circumstance—grappling with a life-threatening condition—each was memorable for its story of unique suffering.

As a consequence of reading these accounts, I found myself with a greatly heightened appreciation for my ordinary existence. Everyday life seems so permanent and unshakable—but, as I was reminded by these writers, it can be destroyed by a single phone call. One memoir after another started with a recitation of the specific moment when a person’s familiar life ended forever. Gilda Radner wrote, “On October 21, 1986, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.” “The call comes at 7:00
P.M
. The tumor is malignant and inoperable.” Cornelius Ryan recalled July 23, 1970: “On this soft morning I think I must begin to acknowledge the distinct possibility that I am dying…. The diagnosis changes everything.”

Reading these accounts also gave me a new and intense appreciation for my obedient body—for the simple ability to eat or walk or even pee in
the usual fashion. Being on vacation pulled me off my usual eating routine, and I found myself indulging in potato chips, milk shakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other treats that I wouldn’t ordinarily eat. One morning I felt dejected because I’d gained a few pounds. But having just finished an account by a prostate cancer survivor made me feel far more kindly to my own body. Instead of feeling perpetually dissatisfied with my weight, I should delight in feeling vital, healthy, pain-free, fear-free.

A common theme in religion and philosophy, as well as in catastrophe memoirs, is the admonition to live fully and thankfully
in the present.
So often, it’s only after some calamity strikes that we appreciate what we had. “There are times in the lives of most of us,” observed William Edward Hartpole Lecky, “when we would have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, though that yesterday had passed over us unappreciated and unenjoyed.”

As I became more aware of the preciousness of ordinary life, I was overwhelmed by the desire to capture the floods of moments that passed practically unnoticed. I never used to think much about the past, but having children has made me much more wistful about the passage of time. Today I’m pushing Eleanor in a stroller; one day she’ll be pushing me in a wheelchair. Will I then remember my present life? I couldn’t get a line from Horace out of my head: “The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.”

I decided to start a one-sentence journal. I knew I couldn’t write lyrical prose for forty-five minutes each morning in a beautiful notebook (and my handwriting is so bad that I wouldn’t be able to read it afterward if I did), but I could manage to type one or two sentences into my computer each night.

This journal became a place to record the fleeting moments that make life sweet but that so easily vanish from memory. It also helped me amplify the effect of happy experiences by giving me an opportunity to observe the third and fourth prongs of the Four Stages of Happiness, by expressing and recalling my feelings. Even after this summer had faded into the past,
I’d have a way to remind myself of unmemorable but lovely moments—the night Jamie invented a new kind of pie or Eliza’s first trip alone to the grocery store. I can’t imagine forgetting the time when Eleanor pointed to her spaghetti and said politely, “Mo’ pajamas, please,” when she meant “Parmesan,” but I will.

On our last day at the beach, when we were packed up and ready to leave, Jamie and I sat reading the newspaper as we all waited for the ferry. Eleanor wandered off to practice her stair climbing on a short set of three stairs, so I went to help her climb up and down, up and down. I considered going to get a section of the paper to read as I stood with her—and then I realized,
this is it.

This was my precious, fleeting time with Eleanor as a little girl, so adorable and cheery and persistent, as she went up and down those wooden stairs. The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, she looked so darling in her pink summer dress; why would I want to distract myself from the moment by reading the paper? She’d already grown so much; we’d never have a tiny baby again.

I’d had this thought before—but suddenly I grasped that
this
was my Third Splendid Truth:
The days are long, but the years are short.
It sounds like something from a fortune cookie, but it’s true. Each day, each phase of life seems long, but the years pass so quickly; I wanted to appreciate the present time, the seasons, this time of life. With Eliza, so much had already passed away—the Wiggles,
Pat the Bunny,
the make-believe games we used to play. One day—and that day wasn’t too far away—I’d think back on Eleanor’s babyhood with longing. This moment of preemptive nostalgia was intense and bittersweet; from that moment of illumination, I’ve had a heightened awareness of the inevitability of loss and death that has never left me.

I made a note of this moment in my one-sentence journal, and now I can hang on to it forever. “All packed up to go home—waiting for the ferry—Eleanor had as much fun climbing the beach stairs as anything we did all summer: up and down, up and down. Heartbreakingly adorable in her white hat that Jamie bought. Clutching her favorite toothbrush of
course. But everything changes, everything passes.” (Sometimes I do cheat and write more than one sentence.)

When I introduced the idea of the one-sentence journal on my blog, I was surprised by the enthusiastic response. Clearly, a lot of people suffer from the same thwarted journal-keeping impulse that I do; like me, they find the prospect of “keeping a journal” enticing but intimidating. The idea of keeping a limited journal, to enjoy the satisfaction of keeping a record of experiences or thoughts but without the guilt or burden of writing at length, struck a chord.