How to Be Happier

Simone and I read a study once that said that throughout a wide variety of tests they had only found one surefire way to increase happiness.  I’ll give you a hint, it didn’t include making more money.  It didn’t even include spending more time with friends and family or achieving your goals.  According to this study, the only thing that made any measurable difference in the happiness levels of its subjects was keeping what they called a gratitude journal.

Apparently, if you write down 3-5 things every day that you are grateful for, eventually you will get into the habit of actually being grateful for things, and being grateful for what you have makes you happy.  It doesn’t mean you don’t still have goals and hopes and dreams, it just means that while you work for those things, you are also enjoying the journey.

I don’t know if this is true, and goodness knows you can’t believe everything you read online, but it did make a lot of sense to me, and so we incorporated this into Ruby’s bedtime routine.  When it’s time to get ready ready for bed, first we give her her medicine, then she brushes her teeth and gets into her jammies.  Once she is under the covers we read stories.  Usually we do a couple of short books, but we have been getting into chapter books lately too (we are currently in the midst of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

Once the stories are over we turn out the lights and ask Ruby three questions.  First we ask her “What was your favorite thing you did today?” to which she invariably replies school, except on weekends of course.  Then we ask her “What was your favorite thing you ate today?”  She always thinks hard about this one, trying to remember all the foods of the day, and we get answers as varied as “cake” and “broccoli.”  Finally we ask her “What was your favorite thing that you saw today?” and although it wasn’t necessarily intended as such, she always answers this question with a list of people that she was happy to see.  Mommy, Daddy, and Edward always make the list (and the cats too) and then depending on who she saw that day, she might say her teacher at school or her friends, cousins, aunts, uncles, or grandparents.

I don’t know if these questions have helped Ruby to be happy or grateful, but she certainly is those things, and I like to think that we have at least a small part to play in how she views the world.  I hope that as she gets older, she keeps in the habit of remembering the good parts of every day.  Even on the worst day of your life, there had to be something nice that you ate, or saw, or did.  And does this really increase happiness?  I couldn’t say.  But as far as attitudes go, I think you could do worse than gratitude.