In January, I started keeping a journal that listed what made me happy each day. It was simple, quick, and I had thought it would be an effective way to boost my overall happiness.
I never missed a day in six months.
Here I am in June, just having started a second “Journal of Happy” after filling the first one on my 19th birthday. What have these past six months taught me about journaling? About happiness? About myself?
Journaling, for me anyway, is a lot like taking notes.
I took notes about the kind of day I’d had, what kind of positive influences affected me. I can point to any day in the past 6 months and remember, even if only vaguely, the moments or events that led to the happiness that I later wrote down.
The happy things varied, but I noticed that they shared common themes – achievements in classes, fraternity events that went well, the ability to nap – that even on days where I was overwhelmed to the point of a breakdown, I still had five things listed for that day.
I did my absolute best to fill those darn pages because if I filled the pages, I wouldn’t actually have to talk about my day.
But I also started to notice patterns in the way that I journaled, and I couldn’t help but adhere to them.
What started as listing three to five things a day, and filling whatever blank space that was left with a little blurb about my day turned into listing five things and trying to take up as much room as possible so I wouldn’t have to write the blurb at the bottom of the page.
What started as using a different colored pencil in blues and purples became alternating between the same two pink and purple pens that resided on my bedside table.
Once the routine had sunken in, that was all that I cared about.
I’m still journaling, and it’s easier to break habits now that I’ve filled a journal up, but the reason I didn’t get what I wanted out of this project thus far is that I wasn’t doing it in a way that was enabling me to learn about myself in the process of it.
Keeping a journal of daily happiness wasn’t making me happier because that wasn’t what I had been doing. I had simply been writing happy things down and trying to format them into an arrangement that pleased the routine-loving person that I am.
As June 1st comes and goes, I’m checking in with my New Year’s Resolution. Am I truly keeping a Journal of Happiness?
I think it’s time to rethink what a Journal of Happiness is. Am I doing it justice? Or have I just been making checkmarks on a routine part of my day?
Here’s my vow to make the rest of the year better than the first half was.
