How to Measure Happiness: January Recap

I don’t think I’m a very happy person naturally. It’s not a word I’d use to describe myself, and I’m always surprised when someone uses that word to describe me. I think it goes back to my Christian upbringing, which placed a higher premium on contentedness and joy than happiness. Happiness was fleeting, but joy could endure.

I wonder now, as an adult and still a believer, if that’s true. Can we feel other emotions and still be happy? Can we feel the darkness and still be filled with joy? Our emotions are too complex to work in a straight line. It’s not either/or. More often, it’s and/both.

When I chose happiness as the mode of transportation for my big project of the year, it was simply because I had lived too many days last year feeling unhappy. Not only was I unhappy, but I was all too focused on my unhappiness, often indulging myself in it and getting swept away.

I had no reason to show up, nothing pulling me up out of the muck I was in. I needed a lifeline, a way out the mess.

I didn’t feel happy or joyful or content. But that’s what I wanted. I wanted my life back. I wanted a reason to get going and tap back into the things that have always made me who I am: words and art and creative living.

Though it’s easy to say now, last year was a hard-fought battle. I had to fall down into the muck and climb my way back out to get to where I am now.

So, I landed on this Literary Happiness Project, a vehicle I hoped would drive me away from where I was to where I was going next: toward being a writer and reader who was happy with her literary life.

It felt profound. It still does.

Creating a writing schedule.

I spent the month with one goal in mind: to start strong. My plan was to figure out a writing schedule that works for me, one that will endure through the year. I want a writing routine that’s sustainable.

I made a schedule for myself and added it to my Google calendar, the place where all my family’s important appointments get scheduled. What I found, though, is that my good intentions would invariably get thwarted, and my writing time would get bumped in favor of appointments, household tasks, and workouts. I was writing, but not as often as I planned.

Halfway through the month, I realized I was going to have to be more protective of my writing time if I was ever going to find a routine that’ll stick. Not only that, but I realized I’d get more writing done if I synced my writing days with the days my husband goes to work (he has a rotating schedule, so these days are different each week).

Even after making those adjustments, I still struggled to show up and write. I tracked my time for the month, sort of, but didn’t track the time that fell through the cracks—the things that kept me from writing. Was it because I was exhausted, because I know that happened? Was it because I was cooking or cleaning or folding laundry? Was it because I had to run to the store for milk? Now, I can’t remember.

What I know is this: I spent only an hour and a half in the month of December writing intentionally. That’s an hour and a half throughout the entire thirty-one days of the month. That’s it.

In January, I spent eighteen hours writing. Eighteen hours! That might not be all the hours I had scheduled for myself, or even half of them, but it’s something. It counts. It’s kind of a big deal.

I used that writing time to write:

• 7 blog posts
• 11 Instagram posts
• Notes I took in the spring and turn them into prose for my memoir
• A total of 9,000+ words

Do I feel happier?

But here’s the big question: Does this make me happy?

If the point of the Literary Happiness Project is to feel happier, then all of this should make me feel happier.

Good news: It does!

The tricky part is that I didn’t really feel that great throughout the month. I set the bar way too high and when I couldn’t hit it, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. In the day-to-day, I wasn’t all that happy. I struggled and fought for the words I got on the page.

But I showed up and did the work.

We have to give ourselves credit for what we are doing, not just what we aren’t.

We can’t keep looking at the ways we’re falling short. We can’t set goals, reach for them, and then get down on ourselves for not measuring up.

Did you do something? Yes? Then you get credit for that.

Can you do more next time? Maybe. You should keep trying.

Because reaching for something big helps you grab hold of something small. All of it counts, and it’s pretty darn happy-making.

Other things that made me happy in January

Reading

I read five books this month, including two excellent memoirs:

• The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate: I read this one with my nine-year-old, and we loved it. The structure and point of view are unique, and this is a story about animals that both embraces their animal-ness and personifies then in a relatable way. It would make a good read aloud for younger kids too.
• Time Warrior by Steve Chandler: This book contains valuable advice about non-linear time management and how to shape your thinking toward action. I expect to refer to it in the future. But it’s not well written or well organized. Comprised of a hundred short chapters, the writing feels unrefined, but the ideas are there: Take action now, do the thing you’re worrying about now, stop worrying about what other people think. Essentially, stop being a victim and do something.
• Educated by Tara Westover: It took a while to get into this one. The first section dragged a bit and felt like one traumatic family incident after another with little break. By the time Tara headed off to college, though, the story picked up for me and the last part of the book, where she finally comes to terms with her family and what she needed to do to move on with her life, was the strongest. Maybe it’s because of my own family traumas and seeing myself particularly in her relationship with her father, but I loved the last section. It gives me courage to write my own story, that these challenging family dynamics are worth exploring on the page. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. 
• Inheritance by Dani Shapiro: I love Dani Shapiro’s writing style, how she pulls you into the moment with her, how the narrative ebbs and flows. Throughout this book, I felt like I was with her, uncovering one stone, then the next. This is a beautiful account of her journey to understand her origins and also explore the ethical dilemma of donor-conceived children. It’s a superb, interesting book. I loved it.
• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard: I read this for the first time in 2007 and it was just as good the second time around. Some valuable advice, especially about the long slog of writing books, but the writing style is very poetic and sometimes intangible.

Personal goals

I also made some health-related changes. I quit alcohol (sort of—I ended up having a few drinks), drank half my body weight or more in ounces of water every day, and started intermittent fasting the second half of the month. The intermittent fasting was intense at first and required a lot of mental energy around what I was eating each day, but after two weeks, I’m feeling great and plan to continue.

—

As the month ends and a new month begins, it feels important to take time to reflect and measure whatever progress I’ve made. I haven’t ever really taken time to track my daily life in a way that’s measurable or taken time to evaluate the data.

It’s not that I want a data-driven life. What I want is to see if what I’m doing is working or not. This is all an experiment in happiness. How will I know if I’m happier or if my life is improving if I don’t take time to look at what I’m doing?

If anything, next month I plan to be more diligent in tracking my time to see what exactly I’m doing all day. I also plan to keep better notes about my writing sessions. What did I write? How long did it take? Did I spend any time rereading, editing, or researching? What about the time it takes to get things posted? I want more data on that.

January was a good month and a good start to this project. That’s enough to keep a smile on my face and help me to keep going as we flip the calendar on to February.