London - Ask yourself this question: Are you happy? Really happy?
Four years ago, Serena Kennedy, from Cheam, Surrey, was not an entirely happy woman. Neither was her friend Beverly Worsley, who was trying to regain her emotional equilibrium after suffering depression.
Meanwhile, accountant Genny Jones, from Kent, was newly divorced, flat broke and living with her two teenage sons. Life seemed bleak for each of these women — then they read a book that was to change their lives for ever.
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin chronicles the American author’s merciless, year-long endeavour to cast off the shackles of gloom and become a better and happier person.
By applying the strictures of scientific thought, economics and positive psychology to her life, Rubin banished despondency and surged onto the sunlit uplands of a more joyful existence.
The former lawyer, who is married with two young daughters, became a better wife, mother, person, friend and all-round human being. She learned to sing in the morning, nourish her spirituality and was candid enough to admit money can buy happiness — if you spend it wisely.
If you were to boil her philosophy down to the basics, achieving lasting Gretchen happiness would come to this: stop eating sugar, tidy your cutlery drawer, cherish novelty, meet deadlines and seize the moment. Above all, her mantra is that outer order leads to inner calm. And she exhorts her readers to begin each day with one simple act: make your bed.
The Happiness Project became an international bestseller, staying at the top of the book charts for two years. It sold millions of copies in more than 30 languages, and readers went on to set up their own happiness groups.
Serena Kennedy, 50, a HR manager, and Beverly Worsley, 55, a charity fundraiser, are two of these readers. They set up their Happiness Group in Esher, Surrey, in 2011. Their group is thriving. They also deliver “lunch and learn” sessions on happiness into the business world.
“The word happy can have weird connotations. People can be resistant as they initially think it’s a religious thing, but it is a force for good,” says Beverly.
Loftier minds might argue that making the pursuit of happiness the centre of your life is selfish and self-indulgent.
But Gretchen argues that happy people are more productive, interested in others, involved in the problems of the world, altruistic and healthier.
“One of the best ways to be happy is to make other people happy, and one of the best ways of making other people happy is to be happy yourself,’ she says. ‘None of this is self-indulgent or trivial. Trying to be happy is a worthy pursuit.”
In Gravesend, Kent, Genny Jones, 53, launched her own Happiness Group, which meets in a local coffee shop. Inspired by Gretchen’s doctrine that fun is energising, Genny even auditioned for the TV show Britain’s Got Talent.
Calling herself the Confident Queen and singing in a pair of wellies, she may not have made it through to the next round, but Simon Cowell did say “every town in Britain needs a Genny”. More importantly, Genny was enjoying herself, rather than sitting at home feeling miserable. “Gretchen changed my life,” she says.
Clearly, Gretchen Rubin is on to something with her self-help books, except she doesn’t call them self-help books; she likes to call them books that are self-helping, which is apparently a big difference.
Maybe so, but it is undeniable that the person they are helping most is 49-year-old Gretchen, who lives in a three-storey New York apartment with her handsome, rich husband, who happens to be a private equities trader with a hedge fund firm.
A lot of women might say that would be enough to make me happy, right there. However, on top of this, Gretchen’s books have made her wealthy on her own merits, she has appeared on the Oprah show and this year had tea with the Dalai Lama (“He looked just like a waxwork ofhimself”).
Critics might also say the lucrative happiness racket means trading on the unhappiness of others. And that in this world of pain and problems, terminal illness and luckless Syrian refugees, to focus on nagging less and hugging more, on making one of Gretchen’s resolutions lists or striving to keep a contented heart is opportunistic, even facetious.
“Look, I am writing a book, people can buy it or not if they want,” says Gretchen. “My approach is to write from my own experience. I am not a scientist, I am not a sociologist, I am who I am and I respond to my own problems and the problems of readers who email me.
“Syrian refugees do not email me and I would never think to speak to that experience. However, it is not selfish to want to be happier.”
We meet in a coffee shop near Gretchen’s home in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She arrives in her “second best” dog-walking shoes and a purple tweed pea jacket.
She is friendly, as slender as a stick of celery and her russet hair and pale complexion are testament to her Scottish/Swedish antecedents.
She drinks black coffee and talks fluently at breakneck speed. Her response to one simple question — did the idea for the book just come to you? — elicited a monster 600-word response, a flavour of which follows:
“It was arduous . . . the intellectual process increasingly convinced me . . . an experience . . . resonate . . . idea and expectation. It almost melted my brain. So many false starts. Understanding. Weirder. Deeper. I can’t really remember.”
What she really meant was: No.
Applying the ferocious levels of discipline one would expect from a woman who once made and kept 92 New Year’s resolutions, Gretchen still avoids sugar and has not eaten carbohydrates for three years. Not a single one? “Nope.”
Wow. “I lost 10lb in a flash and I am much less hungry because I used to have a lot of trouble with hunger, and it is really inconvenient to be hungry. Now I don’t have to worry any more about things such as portion control.”
She has an electric seven-egg boiler and every morning hard boils eggs to last her family the day. Her two children, she says, do eat sugar and carbs. Sort of.
There is the danger of the backlash if something is forbidden. Then they want it more.
“We don’t have spaghetti for dinner, we don’t have bagels at the weekend but they have toast for breakfast, they have desserts and eat candy on Halloween.”
All this might make Gretchen sound like a funless, egg-munching monster, but her saving grace is that she — and her books — are funny and self-deprecating.
“I crave applause! I will do whatever I can to excel! I always did my homework and I want everyone to love me,” she says.
Even a self-help book hater like me can see the practical wisdom in much of what she advocates.
For example, I often don’t reply to emails because I feel I don’t have time to answer them properly. I’ll do it later, I say — then never do.
Now I apply a Gretchen stricture — don’t let the good be the enemy of the perfect — and accept that a short note is better than none at all.
Sometimes you need someone to point out the obstacles on your yellow brick road to inner contentment — right Gretchen? “Right, Jan.” I am with her on the therapeutic and practical benefits of clearing out your wardrobe as well as your psyche.
A calm and tidy home is a happy home and to this end, Gretchen subdivides household clutter into crutch clutter (things you wear, but know you shouldn’t), buyer’s remorse clutter (hanging onto bad purchases because you can’t admit you made a mistake), aspirational clutter (high heels you can’t walk in), freebie clutter and nostalgic clutter.
Since The Happiness Project she’s written two more books, Happier At Home and Better Than Before, out in paperback this week , in which she tackles the patterns of behaviour that shape us.
Her first step to understanding different motivations and weaknesses is to divide the populace into the Four Fateful Tendencies, which describe how we respond to the expectation of others.
The categories are: Upholders (who meet other people’s expectations and their own); Obligers (meet other people’s expectations, but resist their own); Rebels (they resist other people’s and their own expectations); and Questioners (who resist other people’s expectations, but meet their own).
Understanding why you behave in such a way makes it easier to change habit strategy. I am an Obliger, while Gretchen is a goody-two shoes Upholder.
What is persuasive about Gretchen is her belief that people don’t need to be changed, they just need to be made aware of what is in their power to change. And who doesn’t want answers to life’s big questions?
Of course, those whose lives are close to crisis don’t have time for all this stuff and Gretchen agrees that her devotees tend to be the comfortable middle classes — but don’t they deserve to be happy, too?
“I hate the notion happiness is superficial or that happy people are stupid and people who are discerning and deep must somehow be unhappy.
“I say, if you don’t want to be happy, okay, fine. Knock yourself out. The rest of us are trying our best.”
Daily Mail