My Happiness Project: Part 1

I know I’ve mentioned recently how much I love Gretchen Rubin, and how I’ve loved her work since high school. The first book of hers that I came across was The Happiness Project, probably when I was a freshman in high school. In The Happiness Project, she does research on happiness, and then makes 3-4 resolutions per month for a year that she thinks will make her happier, and analyzes whether the resolutions do make her happier, and in what ways they improve her life. (Basically: it's building virtue in both the small things and the large, as I talk about in the post I linked above, only, she doesn't call it that.)

One of the things that I realized when I was rereading a bunch of Gretchen’s books this spring was how much of an impact they had made on me. There were quotes that I remembered, things that I tell myself that I picked up from her books, and frameworks that I apply on a regular basis (“the opposite is also true”, “it’s easy to be heavy, hard to be light”, the Tigger vs. Eeyore dichotomy, the importance of smell, &c, &c). The “easy to be heavy, hard to be light” quote is actually originally Chesterton’s, something that didn’t mean much to me when I first read the book, but which has come to mean a lot to me. Funny how things like that intertwine. Reading it, I remembered how many times I had reread it, and the whole thing felt so familiar and like something that had become part of my brain.

With the amount of impact that the book had made, when I was rereading it, I was thinking about how surprising it was that I had never done a happiness project of my own. Sure, I tried one when I was maybe a sophomore in high school, but my resolutions weren’t concrete enough, nor tailored enough to me, and so I dropped it. But I am a lot like Gretchen in many ways, so I think a happiness project would work well for me. Why hadn’t I done that?

I was pondering this strange thing one day, and I realized…oh. Facepalm moment. I have done a happiness project. I have done many happiness projects. They just look different from Gretchen’s—different enough that I didn’t recognize them as such.

One of the things that Gretchen talks about in her work on habits is the Four Tendencies for forming and maintaining habits:
Upholders respond to both internal and external expectations
Questioners respond to internal expectations but rebel against external expectations
Obligers respond to external expectations, but have a hard time with internal expectations
Rebels don’t do well with any sort of expectations
(this is a gross overgeneralization, given that Rubin wrote a whole book about it called The Four Tendencies, but it’s a relatively good overview.)
I am a Questioner, which means that I tend to be very good about Doing Things That I Want To Do. I also have Upholder tendencies, which means that I am often good about outside expectations for certain things, but other times, I rebel against them, especially if they don’t make sense, or I don’t see the reason, or I don’t think it’ll work.

I realized, when I had my epiphany, that what had happened was I had filed Gretchen’s happiness project format (tracking formal goals each month, building over time) under Things That Won’t Work, because I had tried and failed at something like that. So what I was doing instead was assessing my life every so often and then making tiny resolutions when I saw somewhere that I thought I could be happier (and more virtuous), and putting that resolution (only, I mentally call it a ‘rule’) into play. My Questioner tendencies mean that I don’t find dates significant in the same way that an Upholder or Obliger would, so it works for me not to make monthly resolutions, but ones that I can implement right away.

With that huge leadup said, today I wanted to talk about a few of the resolutions I’ve made, and the impacts that they’ve had on my life! (Kind of like Gretchen does in her books. 😊) Hopefully it will be interesting, and perhaps spark some ideas for you!
Today I'm going to talk about ‘rules’ that I’ve already incorporated into my life at school—I have Many Happiness/Virtue Rules at school, because of the amount of time I spend there...there may possibly be a later post on Happiness Rules I'm following at home this summer, depending on if people enjoy this post. 
Without further ado, my School Happiness Rules:

Find my own books in the library
The library at UIUC is spectacular. Aside from all of the side-libraries within the library building, the beautiful architecture, the children’s literature library, the Audubon prints, and the ox yoke made by Abe Lincoln, the main stacks are the main attraction, for me, at least. There are ten floors of book in stacks that look like they’re from WWII, plus a west wing with about six floors (it’s unclear, since some of them are half floors, and I’ve never done a comprehensive count) and movable stacks. The WWII-esque section has study carrells that also look like they’re from WWII, and staircases that are absurdly fun to race up and down. The whole thing makes me extremely happy to visit and is very easy to get lost in. (Literally and metaphorically.)
But for most of my first year of college, I was just putting holds on books. That’s the habit I had gotten into when I was in high school—that’s how it worked. But at some point, I had the realization that 70-90% of the books that I wanted were already in the main stacks. All I had to do was learn how to find them. That took some trial and error (they’re not on the Dewey Decimal system, which is the system I was familiar with), but once I figured it out, when I want a book, I just go and get it from the main stacks, which makes me happy because I’m visiting the main stacks, AND because it makes me feel capable to be able to find the books I want. Also, it’s a good break from whatever else I’m doing that day.
(One of my proudest moments last semester was when I was finding the floor I needed to go to on the library directory, and one of the librarians was trying to orient a new student, and as they passed by, she told the student “She knows what she’s doing.”)

Don't get on the computer while I eat
It’s very tempting, but if I get on the computer while I eat, I often eat too fast, don’t taste my food, and end up feeling like I haven’t had a break all day.
Instead, my rule for myself when I’m eating is that I can either read a book, or talk to my friends. If I end up reading, I get both a break and some reading time, and I enjoy my food more. If I talk to my friends, I get some social time (something that I don’t value nearly enough, generally speaking), tend to eat more slowly, and definitely taste my food more.
Either way, it’s a break from electronics and from whatever work I’m doing that day, which my workaholic self often needs.

Don't use my phone in the bathroom
This is a similar principle—being on electronics all the time is bad for my eyes, bad for my brain, and makes me feel like I didn’t get a break all day. So, even on my busiest days, I take a book into the bathroom instead of my phone, and that way I get five minutes of reading time and give my eyes and brain a break.
(I’ve become aware that not everyone reads in the bathroom, but it’s something I’ve done ever since I can remember, and I see no reason to stop now.)

Get dressed first
If I bounce out of bed and get straight onto my computer, I end up putzing around on Discord and Blogger and getting nothing done for like 45 minutes, all while feeling disgusting in my pajamas. It’s not fun.
Whereas if, instead, I get out of bed and put my clothes on first thing, I feel ready for the day, I can go somewhere else to study than my dark room with my (generally sleeping) roommate, and when I do get on the computer, I tend to be more productive, because having my ‘work clothes’ on tells my brain that it's time to actually Do Stuff. Even better, if I have the time while I’m getting dressed to think and plan out the day, I often decide to start with something other than getting on the computer—doing Latin, or going to the chapel. It’s another way to reinforce ‘first things first’.
This is actually one of the resolutions that I have the hardest time with, though, because every day when I get up, my brain is like “but checking your email doesn’t take that long…why don’t you just do a quick check”. But it’s a trap!

Don’t walk while on my phone
I absolutely hate watching my peers walking around on campus with their eyes glued to their phones, scrolling, tapping, engrossed. It makes me sad. Also, again, that much screen time cannot be good for your eyes or brain. Therefore, I have made a rule for myself that in order to use my phone, I have to be stationary. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of walking, I do need to answer a text, and so I stop walking. Otherwise, I look at it while I’m sitting down, and not a lot of other times. (This is one that I do break occasionally, but usually only when I’m walking down a hallway or up a staircase in my dorm.)

Read while walking; don't read while walking
This is one of the resolutions of which Gretchen would say “the opposite of a splendid truth is also true”. It’s a matter of balance, of having two different things to do while walking, and choosing between them based on the day.
Since I’m not on my phone while I’m walking, a lot of the time I will read while walking. This is something that I’ve done since I was a Very Small Girl Indeed (I often made my parents nervous, but I don’t remember ever hurting myself when I did it when I was little), and so a habit. It’s also one of the secrets to how I read so much. I walk a lot (as I’m going to talk about in a moment), and especially if I’m walking a long way, reading while walking really helps to pass the time. And thus, I read a lot.
However, because I’m so busy, a lot of the time, walking is the only time I have to think. And so, if I read while walking, my brain is just getting a constant input all day, and by the time I get to Mass and the end of the day, I can’t concentrate, because my brain is so full of STUFF. And on days like that (especially towards the end of the semester), it’s better for me to not read while walking, so that I can have that time to think. (Do I always do this? No. Because reading is also a very convenient escape. But hey, I at least know that I should.)

No homework after 8pm or on Sundays
I could literally keep working all of the time, whether on homework (especially while I’m at school) or on my own projects. But if I did that, my sanity would be Much Impaired. In order to have that not be the case, I’ve created two buffer times for myself where I’m not allowed to do homework.
1. Sundays. I observe the sabbath in my own way, which is that I don’t do homework. I know that ‘no work on Sundays’ only encompasses menial labor, so if I’m in dire need, I can do homework. But I prefer to keep the sabbath holy by giving my brain a break so that I can spend more time with God without feeling guilty about it. It means that Sunday is often an excellent reading day, and I avoid the “Sunday-evening homework rush” that afflicts so many of my fellow students.
2. After 8 pm on any given weekday. Daily Mass was, this past semester, at 8 pm, which gave me a really convenient ‘knocking off time’. I’d finish my homework for the night, and then go to Mass and Adoration. It’s really hard as a student because there’s no 9-5, after which you can say you’re off-duty, so I gave myself one. Otherwise, I would have stayed up way too late every night working.
Both of these boundaries definitely contributed to my mental health, and even with maintaining those boundaries, I still got excellent grades even in a semester where I was taking 21 credit hours. (By working my tush off during the day, but I digress.)

Go to Night Office
After some traumatic stuff with friend(s) this February, I found that I wasn’t getting nearly enough social time—I was working and isolating myself and just not talking to people. It was making me anxious and sad, and at just the right time, one of our priests, Father M, started offering ‘Night Office’ where on the weeks that he doesn’t have the 8 pm Mass, he opens up his office with tea and hot cocoa (and sometimes Turkish Delight—that was a very good day) from 8:30 to 10:15 PM. (This was also part of how I enforced my post-8 pm homework ban.) As Mass and Adoration get out, people (by which I mean most of my friend group) congregate and chat about everything from Dante’s Divine Comedy to weed jokes. (To be clear: none of my friends nor I are involved with weed. That’s why it’s funny.) And so, I made the resolution to go to Night Office every night that it was offered, even if I had to study for an exam while I was there. And now, those nights are some of my favorite memories from this past semester. Plus, I felt much more human, having that interaction.
This resolution is about more than Night Office, though—it’s about making sure that at school, I get enough social interaction. At home, I have to actively sequester myself to get introvert time, or else my head explodes, but at school, I have to actively get out and see people, or else I will turn into a little ball of sad. Therefore, “Go to Night Office” also means “sit down with people at lunch”, “go to events”, “say hello in the hallways”, and “ambush your friends to have a conversation”.

Saturday is a homework day; make it interesting
Because of my rules about no homework on Sunday, and no homework after 8 pm, Saturdays often become overflow homework days. But it’s still a weekend, and because I don’t have classes, at the end of this past semester, I experimented with doing something fun in addition to or even during my homework time. I’ve gone into the little town that’s next to campus to an international market/café combo to do homework on a couple of different occasions, and that’s always really fun, and I also took the train into Chicago one Saturday and did my homework on the train. I didn’t get to experiment with this one a lot, because the semester was almost over when I decided to try it, but I’m looking forward to finding more cafes, coffee shops, and bookstores to do homework in on Saturdays this coming semester.

Look up
“People never remember to look up” is a quote from Ranger’s Apprentice that I think about all the time. Since the time I was little, I’ve never wanted to be the ‘people who never look up’, so I try to make the effort to look up. And it’s rewarding. The trees on campus are beautiful to look up through, and the architecture is beautiful to look up at. I themed a whole portion of one of my landscape architecture projects on the way tree branches look from below. And sometimes, on the most rewarding days, when I look up, I might spot one of my friends in a tree. (Yes, this has happened, and on more than one occasion. Same friend, though.)

Walk when I can
I hate exercise. This is something that I have just started to accept about myself. (Actually, who am I kidding, I've accepted it since I was a freshman in high school. I've just stopped feeling bad about it recently.) Or rather, I hate pointless exercise. The idea of exercising simply to exercise makes me want to curl up into a ball and die. However, give me exercise that has a point to it, and I will happily embrace it any day. For example: backpacking, hiking (I can actually hike a surprisingly long distance with a surprising amount of elevation gain without getting tired, after many years of practice), carrying around 50+ lb. bales of hay.
So, I’ve made it a rule for myself at college that, in order to get enough (or almost enough) exercise to stay fit, I can’t take the bus to my destination unless it’s a) snowing or b) I won’t get there in time if I walk. I’ve had some adventures with this, some better than others, but since it’s a big campus, I generally get at least a 20-minute walk in every school day, and sometimes as much as an hour-long walk, which is a win in my book. (And if I’m reading while I walk during that time, it doesn’t even feel like exercise at all…)

So yeah! Those are the “happiness rules” that I follow when I’m at school to help myself, well, be happier (and more virtuous)!

This has become an absurdly long post of me talking about myself, so now I want to hear about you! Have you ever implemented a “happiness rule”? Do you relate to any of the rules I’ve set for myself? Do you remember to look up? What do you like to do on Sundays?