Happiness

It's almost here! Just a few more days! It starts Thursday!

What is it? It's the Motherhoot Happiness Challenge.

The idea is that by identifying things that make us happy each day, we will end up happier. It's a way to get us to see that life is filled with good, but we probably don't always see it that way.

For instance, if I were to do a gratitude journal entry for today, these are the things I would list (so far!):

• the smell of chlorine even after showering off the pool water
• kids who are getting along
• sunshine
• the wall Jim built me in the yard
• budding leaves on the lilacs

Nothing mind-blowingly grand. Nothing that cost a lot of money or took a lot of effort (well, except for the part where Jim built a wall!). Just noticing life and how darn good it can be most of the time.

I came upon this website today and now want to read the accompanying book. The Happiness Project is Gretchen Rubin's memoir of a year she spent "test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier." The whole site is fascinating and I could lose myself there for hours. Take a look and see what I mean.

For the Motherhoot Happiness Challenge, the Hoots (which is now how I am thinking of all the contributors to the Motherhoot site) and all who want to join in, will keep a daily gratitude journal listing the things that they are grateful for that day. The science behind the gratitude journal is that after doing this for awhile (we're all doing it in April!) you will become happier.

I like that idea. I've been on a year-long stint of postive thinking and looking at the glass as half full, and I am definitely feeling better about things. I've been pretty lax with my recent gratitude journal keeping, but am looking forward to starting it up again. I, of course, have an app for it! But anything will do: small notebook, scrap paper, your computer...

I hope you'll join us on the project. The Hoots will be posting comments once a week about their progress. You don't need to share your actual gratitude journal, just share a little something about how it's making you feel.

Of course, if you don't find a gratitude journal at all helpful, we want to know that too! If you can't be honest with the Hoots, we're doing something wrong!