Fighting the Droop: Search for Happiness in Bryant Park
That classic chicken-egg conundrum never seems to work itself out, not even when it comes to the classics of self-help gems, like Eat Pray Love, He’s Just Not That Into You, or even Julie and Julia: Does love and happiness come from knowing yourself or if you know yourself, can you find love and happiness?
Gretchen Rubin takes a stab at this in The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Despite achieving her very nuclear-style family and a successful (meaning, published) writing career, Rubin just can’t be satisfied; nor should she. She goes deeper and examines her goals and accomplishments through the not-so-rosy lens of self-fulfillment and dares to achieve the simple but near impossible: Rubin tries to keep this thing called life fresh.
Her Happiness Project is a well-baked pie of New Year’s Resolutions injected with practical pills of serotonin, like exercise, playtime, and laughter. Rubin gave each aspect of her life a month of maintenance: She devoted January to her physical vitality, while February was all about strengthening her marriage. In March, she was all business when it came to her career, and April was for the kids and reminding herself of why she became a parent.
One year later, Rubin has yet another achievement to add to the list, kind of. If you scroll through The Project’s accompanying blog, it’s clear that Rubin’s brand of “greater happiness” is not allusive but rather an ongoing project and eliminates the dreaded pressure of perfection — a strangely perfect ingredient in self-help.
Rubin shares all this, in person, on Wednesday as a featured author in the Bryant Park Word for Word reading series. Daryl Strawberry kicked off this weekly event with his memoir Straw: Finding My Way and it continues with the likes of fashionista Kelly Cutrone, funny lady Samantha Bee, and the eerily observant Colson Whitehead.
Gretchin Rubin reads The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun at the Bryant Park Reading Room on Wednesday, May 26th, at 12:30 p.m. This is a free event.
Tags:Bryant Park, Bryant Park Word for Word, Clean My Closets, Eat Pray Love, Fight Right, Generally Have More Fun, Gretchen Rubin, He’s Just Not That Into You, Julie and Julia, Read Aristotle, Self-Help, Straw: Finding My Way, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning
3. July 2010 at 12:17 am :
i love to read self-help books on the internet. they can really improve your life.`”,
28. September 2010 at 12:47 am :
self-help is an interesting topic and i always want to be able to help myself and fix any problems*”;
13. October 2010 at 3:37 pm :
i love to read those self-help books online, they can really help me alot when dealing with problems.`,
25. October 2010 at 4:20 am :
everyone likes to be able to do some Self-Help stuffs, it is a good idea to be able to help yourself with just about any proble`.:
22. December 2010 at 3:51 pm :
there are many different book genres online but i would really love to read about self help books ‘.;