As another year winds down and we go into the holiday wrap up, here’s something weird to try out. Back in senior year of high school my friend Elizabeth showed me her notebook filled of things that made her happy. Her examples were the typical cliche things; friends, religion, cuteness. I wondered what would happen if I were to start such a book, surely it would be filled with pure masculine awesomeness. The concept is simple, get a notebook and write in it only when you think, “Wow, that made me happy.”
Well fifty cents on a polka dot notebook and a month later, the results were shocking. 220 twitter sized entries showed me what logic could not. Data showed that what made me happy was small, almost childish and for the most part easily attainable. Here are some examples from my research:
- Hammocks (This was written down 6 times)
- Actually having “noise-canceling” headphones on a plane with a crying baby
- Sticking my arm out the window while driving
- Nighttime fruit plates
- Summertime picnics
- Pilotwings for N64
- Loch Ness monster
- Playing Zobmondo
- Ari Gold quotes
A few distinct categories of happiness emerged for me; traveling, outdoors, adventures, naps, anything that reminds me of the 90s, reading, and surprisingly business. At the time I thought I wanted to be a political science major and because of my findings promptly changed it to international management. After doing the research into what made me happy personally, it helped me focus on what was actually important, instead of what I thought was important. It’s funny how far from reality your mind will stray sometimes. Basing actions on fact, even if they are emotional facts, is better than winging it.
These days I don’t regularly update the Happy Book, but will reference it when I need cute date ideas or to avoid boredom. How would you change your life if you knew what made you happy instead of guessing? Try it out and drop me a comment about whats in your Happy Book.
Back in sixth grade we had one of my little brother’s friends over for dinner, my mom trying to be polite and ask him to take his dishes over to the sink; “Andrew, are you going to go wash off your dishes?”. His response would go down in my book of legendary ballsy kids quotes, “No ma’am thats women’s work, why would I do that.” That comment stuck with me for years. If a third grader won’t do dishes, why should I?
When I was growing up I never did the dishes, even in bake shop class in high school I made the emo girl do them. After moving out and coming to college my roommate and I made a pact; I will cook everything, you do the dishes. This agreement held firm for the last 3 years. My dish washing ignorance would be perfect bliss, but I realized with my roommate moving out in 6 months I am going to be completely on my own for the first time ever. My parlor trick for never have I ever would soon be over.
While my roommate was interviewing for a management position in Colorado, I got left behind for two days and the dishes piled up. I could wait or I could attempt to do them myself. After a few youtube videos I had the confidence to run the dishwasher by myself for the first time in my life. Surprisingly, nothing flooded (like the time we tried to brew sake) and everything worked out.
Even though I would normally consider this a menial event, something strange happened to me. During the same two day period, I cleaned my room which I have loved how messy its been since 1989, did all my laundry where I usually do half and leave the rest for later, went through my clothes and donated what I don’t wear anymore to goodwill, sold my electronic unnessecities on ebay, and wrote about ten pages on fraternal education. In these two extremely productive days, I showed myself what was possible when I stopped talking and started doing.
I truly believe that you can find the formula for anything. In example, my productivity formula is; isolation, listening to albums (playlists and shuffle don’t work), tea, and pomodoro technique. If I can control my environment and set up those elements, productivity follows.
It’s good to be back to blogging, this time a little different than just sharing my stories of getting into and causing trouble. My motivation, inspiration, and writing style has changed a lot since I first started blogging back in 2005. Let’s wipe the slate clean, make some badass changes throughout our lives, and grow old together.
