Rubin offers several great ideas on how to improve happiness. Of course, some are 100 percent self-specific and only work toward her happiness. But a lot of her resolutions are broad enough that anyone, after reading her novel, can adapt and apply them to their own lives. I particularly loved the section on mindfulness and staying in the moment. Rubin offers helpful suggestions on how to achieve this and they are easily accessible to her readers. I also enjoyed her 12 personal commandments and secrets to adulthood. I found them very relevant and useful, not only while reading, but in my own life as well. "Act the way you want to feel" and "be [your name entered here" are reasonable yet beneficial rules to live by and it's fun to watch Rubin work on them.
For all I liked about The Happiness Project, I wish I would've fallen in love with it. Unfortunately I found it a little too research heavy and that weighed it down. At times, I found the reading a little slow-going and the pages had a tendency to drag at certain points. Although at certain points Rubin become a self-proclaimed Pollyanna, working towards extremes with being nice to others and such, it was a little overwhelming. Very few people, Rubin included as she was not able to fully keep her Pollyanna resolutions, can live or work at an extreme like that and while I appreciate the attempt to push herself, it was a little too much for a fellow woman living in a big city. It just seems unreasonable and therefore, unnecessary.
Overall though, I think Rubin have some very creative and interesting ideas on how to improve happiness. They are suggestions that are easily applicable to anyone's life with a bit of personal tweaking. It was certainly a respectable experiment, and one I think that was worthwhile to share.
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