As I read the Happiness Project chapter 8 I began to understand more of Zacks reasons for not being in love with the book. It did, to me, seem a bit forced and lacked imagination as she said,"i wanted to put the happiness of others before my own happiness" feeling scripted and clique like she read that somewhere and felt like it was what she was suppose to say. I felt like there could have been more authenticity to her in how she arrived at her conclusions. I guess most of the chapter left me asking myself, “have I already read this somewhere?” and didn’t provide fresh air to any one perspective.
There were, however, parts of the chapter that I did liked. I really appreciate the quote, "there are times in the lives of most of us, when we would have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, when yesterday had passed over us unappreciated and not enjoyed.”I feel that so often we waste our time with pointless worriment that can neither change a single problem nor help us to arrive at a solution, but rather can keep us trapped inside that one particular situation for hours upon end. We are then just wasting time and forgetting to appreciate and cease the moments of here and now. I think that people can often stay in this state of mind their entire lives and not even realize it.
Writing can, as she puts it, help"[capture] the floods of moments that passed practically unnoticed"and bring them alive again. For this reason, I also appreciated her idea of keeping a one sentence journal (though i know, I, on the other hand, would get lost in endless pages of thoughts). I like this idea of trying to tie everything, good or bad, into one perfect string of carefully chosen words, to express and capture the feeling of that moment. To me that sounds beautiful. That’s one reason why i love writing. You have the ability of slowing down time with the process of seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting your surroundings as you place them on paper to be seen and heard forever. It truly is a gift to savor the moments that made you once feel alive.
I also had a love/hate relationship on the section of gratitude. Though I agreed of the importance of thankfulness and appreciating yourself and your surroundings, I didn’t like the way she arrived at this topic for I felt like it mirrored too similarly the same thought of the one sentence journal. It then came off redundant and forced. It felt, again, inauthentic.
Personally, I would not be concerned with a moments happiness, for It comes and goes with every passing situation. Instead I would focus on learning to be “joyful” for joy can be found in all situations. Joy sees past the present “misfortune” and knows their is a light on the other side.
Anyways, over all I appreciated her perspective for any internal thought can be food for the curious mind.
Click the Happiness Project to read the chapter for yourself!
I very much agree with your perspective of the reading. While overall I appreciate her advice and the purpose for her experiment and the intended helpfulness of writing, I do find it a bit contrived. Not having read the whole book I can't yet say whether she would win me over at some point, like the annoying character in a movie who turns out to undergo the most growth and becomes the hero, but I will never know because I won't be reading it all!
ReplyDeleteAnother reason I might have a hard time reading this is because it's all so unoriginal. Nothing she has touched upon so far is new, nor does she give it a new spin in order to make it refreshing. Reading Bunn's "Reading Like a Writer" didn't help matters; I found myself being much more skeptical than I already am!
I appreciate that you found some good points in Rubin's work though, it's important to look for the positives even when they're difficult to find.
I agree with both of you ladies whole-heartedly about The Happiness Project. I got extremely frustrated with the author's attitude at times, but there were also parts that offered a different, seemingly more genuine thought or idea. I think she has good intentions, but her "journey" isn't something that the average person can afford, or have time to take on.
ReplyDeleteI read "Reading Like a Writer" in Zack's academic writing class, and in that class it proved to be extremely useful. It doesn't apply as much to personal journaling, but, in any case, it's been a good reference in the back of my mind for my own writing. It made me much more aware of who my audience might be and what I want them to get out of reading something I wrote.
Nice insight on the readings.