This week has been a convergence of ah-ha moments, all loosely tied to my committment to blog my way through The Happiness Project (hereafter referred to as THP). A breakdown for readers:

First, I attended an event at my parish that featured a student preacher – my 20-year-old daughter. At one point she said something about people doing what they were born to do and how we should pay attention when God “moves things around” inside our hearts/souls. She was much more eloquent than I’m relating here and had more pearls of wisdom, but the epiphany I had when listening is this: I worry a lot – too much – about what everyone else thinks of my life choices, particularly when it comes to work.

As Gretchen Rubin writes in the March (or third) chapter of THP: “I have an idea of who I wish I were, and that obscures my understanding of who I actually am.” Can I get an amen from the choir on that? How great the world would be – or at least my little part of the world – if we could all just figure out who were were meant to be and accept that instead of trying to be someone else. So, that’s ah-ha moment #1: Do what you want, work where you want, regardless of the pay, prestige, or pressure from others.

A view of Ventana Canyon from the trail

Next, my husband and I went on a long hike on Ventana Canyon Trail. When he asked me to go I couldn’t figure out why I was so excited, and then I remembered what I discovered last month when I was reading the first part of THP – that I really like doing physical things outside with friends or family. If that is the case, I thought, why the heck has it been a month since I made time to do that??? Ah-ha moment #2: Schedule these physical-with-family/friends events twice a month instead of allowing time to go by.

Then, taking a social risk, I attended a women’s Faith Sharing group at my parish. It is co-led by a Dominican sister, new to both Tucson and the parish, and a student from the University of Arizona, and the age range is college sophomore through mid-life women. The last time I had the chance to participate in a group like this was when we lived in Alabama 17 years ago, and until I was sitting there on the couch listening to the insights these women shared, I didn’t realize just how much I’d missed it. More importantly, I didn’t realize how absolutely necessary that kind of connection is for my internal stability and external happiness. It was like finding a lost key to my heart. Ah-ha moment #3: Pay attention to what feeds your soul and make sure you get it.

Then finally, a writer on the Catholic Writers’ listserv mentioned that she was also reading THP and that Rubin’s list of books that “most influenced” her year-long Happiness Project included one written by a Catholic saint: the Story of a Soul, by St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The others were Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and everything written by Samuel Johnson. That observation reminded me that I was supposed to be reading the book a little bit each day to blog about it and that  I was a slug for abandoning that original commitment. So, ah-ha moment #4: Stop trying to do a million things at once and just settle on a handful and actually do them. (So much to do… so little time to get it right!)

OK, so for those of you still reading here’s the low down on what I’ve read in THP lately: The February chapter is about “remembering love.” Rubin’s HP required that she quit nagging, fight right, not “dump” on her husband, stop expecting praise or appreciation, and “give proofs of love.” She offers plenty of lots of information on what research says about making happy marriages and relationships (here’s a video of her breaking some of it down – scroll down to “proofs of love” video), and is self-effacing when discussing her own struggles in the area. What stood out for me most was Rubin’s experience of a week of “Extreme Nice.” She spent one week with no criticism, no nagging and no snapping at her husband.

I’ve decided I’m going to try this Extreme Nice challenge myself next week – and believe me, it will be a

The object of my affection - and my Extreme Nice challenge - taking a break on the hike.

challenge, since I’m probably one of the most negatively tuned, critical people on earth. (Nothing like 25 years as a journalist to set your positivity meter to the minus side.) I’m not alone in this “think negative” trait, though: Polls show that lots of us – at home, in the work world, at stores and on the road – are thinking more negatively than ever. It is as though we’ve trained ourselves to focus on the negative and negate the positive. (Of course, the news probably doesn’t help, which is why you should read this Web site every day after you read your daily paper or scan the headlines on the Web.)

But there’s a good reason to flip our negative Nellie attitudes around: Personal and relational happiness. Marriages and relationships with more negative comments said daily than positive ones (even if those comments are framed as “jokes”) are 10 times more likely to be unhealthy, unhappy and end in a breakup. So, to go for healthy and happy, try to aim for a 3-to-1 ratio: For every one negative thought/emotion/comment you have, you need to have three positive ones. (Sure, the tire is flat, but at least it isn’t raining, you have a jack and the sun is still out so you don’t have to use a flashlight when changing the tire. Sure your husband leaves his socks on the floor, but he also reads to the kids each night, coaches your son’s T-ball team and remembers to put the toilet seat down.)

I am going to give it the old college try … starting in about 10 minutes. I’m still steaming about the woman who rear-ended me two weeks ago while talking on her cell phone. My car’s been in the shop since then and I just got a call saying that they might have to total it, which SUCKS because we’d finally saved up enough money to pay it off and if they total it, we’ll have to pay it off and buy another one … getting stuck with a car payment again. GRRRR!!! I did nothing wrong and I’m having to suffer for it, argh! So, all you talker-drivers out there? Please, do me a favor: Hang up and drive.

The beginning of a happiness journey.

As promised, I’m going to blog my thoughts as I work my way through Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. I’m only through the first chapter, but I’ve already discovered my major problem where it comes to being happy: I am not really sure what makes me happy.

I know what brings me pleasure, and I can even point to moments of contentment, and the rush of uncovering something no other reporter knows and bringing it to light is freaking AMAZING … but are those things really happiness? I’ve passed on the wisdom before regarding the difference between happiness and pleasure (at least where moral issues are concerned), and if you ask 10 different people to define “happiness” you’d get 10 different answers, methinks. Hence the need for individual happiness projects; what rings my bells, may not ring yours. Yet, like folks who’ve said they know obscenity when they see it, Rubin says (and I agree) that we probably each know happiness when we see it. Problem is, at least for moi, I don’t pay close enough attention.

So, that’s the first step: Setting aside some time to think about what really TRULY makes me happy. And that thinking can make you a little crazy, Rubin writes. From the book:

“…as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously – and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. … I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.”

“The laws of happiness are as fixed as the laws of chemistry,” Rubin writes, but even if one isn’t making up the laws from scratch, one needs to wrestle with those laws in light of one’s particular circumstance to develop a happiness plan and then figure out steps to implement that plan in one’s life. Use the research – i.e. one of the most important elements to happiness is social bonds – and find a way to apply that to your life. Then, baby stepping it, add something else that is particular to your happiness and figure out a plan to get more of that in your life.

For instance, I now know that work is key to my happiness; life after the closure of the Citizen has taught me that. But since I’ve not found fulltime employment, I’ve found that if I treat my training as “work” it increases my happiness as if it were a job. Not perfect, but in the right direction.

One of the best parts of Rubin’s first chapter was her list of Secrets to Adulthood. (Some of the secrets in the book are not included in the online link above and so I mention them here: Bring a sweater; do good, feel good; and people actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts from their registry.) Another great insight was her discovery that one goal of her happiness project was “to prepare for adversity – to develop the self-discipline and the mental habits to deal with a bad thing when it happened.” She didn’t want to wait for a crisis to remake her life. I think that’s great advice, although, for me, being unemployed has turned out to be more of a crisis than I imagined, so I’m going to start where I am.

If you’re wondering just how happy you might be, you can take the Authentic Happiness Inventory Questionnaire (you have to register online to take it), but keep in mind Rubin’s words: you don’t have to be unhappy to start a happiness project. You just have to want to make a change. And for me, for this week or so, I’m going to just focus on writing down the times I feel happy (and unhappy) and see if I can come up with a list of what makes me happy so I can move onto the next section of the book where resolutions are developed out of those happiness goals.

Hiking in Pima Canyon over Thanksgiving with family and friends

POSTSCRIPT: I just got back from riding seven miles on the Rillito River bike trail, something I’ve wanted to do ever since we moved to Tucson 10 years ago. I went with my rock-n-roll son, and at one point I heard myself say, “This is great, I’m so happy!” Upon reflection, I realized I am always happy when I’m enjoying outside exercise, if I’m with family or friends. So, that’s top of the aforementioned “What makes me happy” list: Exercising outside with family or friends.

Welcome to the first true God Blogging post of 2010. (An earlier brief post re: this doesn’t count.) It’s hard to believe an entire year has gone by since journalism as I knew it was blown to smithereens, via a business agreement between two media giants that resulted in Arizona’s oldest daily newspaper being replaced by this blog site cum citizen journalism venture. Like millions of other laid off workers in this country, I’m remaking myself at mid-life, plowing through a federally subsidized teacher certification program after finally accepting (most days) that there is Life After Journalism.

Which brings us to this blog. I neglected it in the latter months of 2009 because of an internal battle over my former identity (professional – read: paid – journalist) and my current writing options (unpaid blogging; barely-paid and unpredictable freelance reporting; better paid but sporadic and tedious PR writing). I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say I’ve come to an understanding with myself that, in spite of being unpaid, blogging aides my sanity while wrestling with school papers demanding MLA citations. This was the first insight I got when reading the just-published The Happiness Project, which author Gretchen Rubin defines as an approach to changing your life:

“First is the preparation stage, when you identify what brings you joy, satisfaction, and engagement, and also what brings you guilt, anger, boredom, and remorse. Second is the making of resolutions, when you identify the concrete actions that will boost your happiness. Then comes the interesting part: keeping your resolutions.”

I have yet to identify all might bring me joy, etc., or all that brings me guilt, etc., but I know that one joy builder is

Another joy builder is playing in the Flagstaff snow

blogging, so I’m resolving to do more of it, the short details of which you can read about here in the newly updated “About Me and God Blogging.”(Regular readers will recall that I tried to get a virtual Happiness Project group started last year but didn’t follow through. This year, I will blog my way through Gretchen’s book, which is a more reasonable goal for me considering my school requirements. I’m very much into setting reasonable goals this year.)

So, as promised in the “About” link, here’s some thoughts on God (and more) news of late: First, perhaps you heard that FOX News’ Brit Hume thinks Tiger Woods needs Jesus to stop philandering. I won’t add much to the cacophony, except to point you to Rabbi Brad Hirschfield’s interesting take over at Beliefnet and then, for LOL religious disrespect all around, John Stewart’s video on it here. (Yes, I do believe God has a sense of humor.)

Second, if you are interested in contributing to charities who do good out in the world, consider adding GoodSearch to your browser. In a few minutes, you can add it to your toolbar and then every time you use it to search the Web, money is donated to a charity of your choice. FAQs are here, but it seems a fairly painless way to get someone else’s money directed to good works in what sometimes seems like a hostile, selfish world.

And speaking of good, way back in September, Washington Monthly came out with college rankings of a different sort: They ranked 258 national universities for the amount of “public good” they provided based on three categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). University of Arizona got an overall score of 51 out of 100, with a ranking of 160 (out of the 258) in Social Mobility, 18 (!) in research expenditures and 36 in the “faculty in national academies” area (both part of the “Research” category), and a ranking of 97 in the number of graduates who head off to the Peace Corps. ASU, by comparison, got an overall score of 33 out of 100 in the rankings. For full detail, check out the interactive rating scale here.

If you’re interested in what one of the major go-to religion sites has to say about the top religion stories of the decade (including the rise and fall of the Religious Right and the rise of the New Atheists), check out Beliefnet’s multimedia article on that here, written by a reporter from Religion News Service. There is a great “related features” page at the end of the slides/article.

Finally, there are a couple of changes in the sidebars of God Blogging (and more). I deleted the “What I’m Reading” because, seriously, who really cares? I’ve added a “Let Us Pray” because at least some of the people who read this blog practice prayer and I wanted to offer the option for those wanting to share prayer needs a place to do that locally. Send your requests via the “Contact Me” button over on the right sidebar. And please, if you don’t practice or believe in prayer, practice kindness and don’t harass those who do. As This American Muslim says in his bio, if you don’t like what you read, close the browser.

The other blog change is that I’ve winnowed out links listed under “Stalking,” deleting those that have died or haven’t been updated for two months, and I added a couple new ones. I don’t agree with what is written on all of them, but think they make for a well-rounded short list of faith and religion writers (this being, after all, primarily a God blog), so check them out if you’re so inclined.

The exceptions to “religion-blog-only” standard are three: Rubin’s Happiness Project; my personal blog about studying for teacher certification; and The Desert Lamp because the UA students who write it are intelligent, witty, ask questions about Arizona higher education that no one else appears to think of. For instance, check out this post noting that the “as nearly free as possible” chant re: state funding of education refers only to instruction, not the fancy-schmancy dorms and other accouterments University leaders

Our just-graduated mechanical engineer son (right) with one of his ME professors at NAU's December graduation ceremonies. No more tuition hikes for him, and our UA daughter has less than two years until graduation.

say they must have to attract students. Evan Lisull (he of chalking controversy) and co-blogger Conor Mendenhall follow the money and break it down for all to see. (They are damn good reporters, and neither is a j. major.) They should pair up with Arizona Board of Regents’ President Ernest Calderón in his look-see at UA/ASU athletics spending (and maybe ask why can’t UA’s estimated $2 million bowl take go to fund, oh, a break in yet another tuition hike?)

So, thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, Happy New Year and Happy Epiphany! Talk w/ you tomorrow.