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A review by marshmallowbooks
Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin
4.0
This was a very pleasant read. The only other book by Gretchen Rubin that I have read is The Four Tendencies, so I don't really know how this book compares to her original Happiness Project. However, I have been listening to her podcast "Happier" for about a year and I do plan on reading her other books as well.
My favorite thing about Gretchen's Happier at Home Project is that it is Gretchen's project. She isn't writing to tell readers how to be happier at home. This is not an advice book, or a step-by-step how-to book. It is simply Gretchen telling how she determined things that she felt would make her happier in her own home environment, and then she did them, and she was happier.
The only thing she touts as something readers could do is create their own happiness projects, but by no means does that have to include any of the same things she did. You don't want to or need to take driving lessons? Then don't. You do want to travel more (even though Gretchen doesn't)? Then do.
I was inspired by some of her exact happiness steps, particularly about time, her focus for January. My greatest takeaway from this book is a quote by Thoreau: "I love a broad margin to my life." I feel exactly the same way and love that phrase to describe something I have never really been able to state nearly as eloquently. For other steps she followed, I either determined they would not be for me, or identified some element that held meaning for me, but I would tackle in a much different way if I were setting the goal for myself.
I read the actual book, but I have listened to the Happier podcast often enough that Gretchen's voice read the words in my head which was not at all a bad thing.
My favorite thing about Gretchen's Happier at Home Project is that it is Gretchen's project. She isn't writing to tell readers how to be happier at home. This is not an advice book, or a step-by-step how-to book. It is simply Gretchen telling how she determined things that she felt would make her happier in her own home environment, and then she did them, and she was happier.
The only thing she touts as something readers could do is create their own happiness projects, but by no means does that have to include any of the same things she did. You don't want to or need to take driving lessons? Then don't. You do want to travel more (even though Gretchen doesn't)? Then do.
I was inspired by some of her exact happiness steps, particularly about time, her focus for January. My greatest takeaway from this book is a quote by Thoreau: "I love a broad margin to my life." I feel exactly the same way and love that phrase to describe something I have never really been able to state nearly as eloquently. For other steps she followed, I either determined they would not be for me, or identified some element that held meaning for me, but I would tackle in a much different way if I were setting the goal for myself.
I read the actual book, but I have listened to the Happier podcast often enough that Gretchen's voice read the words in my head which was not at all a bad thing.