I recently came across a book by Gretchen Rubin called "The Happiness Project." The book follows her search for happiness in her own life over the course of a year and all the adventures that follow. She describes the book as "an approach to changing your life." At first, I was skeptical of reading this book, solely because it was labeled as "self-help." But I soon came to realize this book was more of a memoir of someone looking for happiness and inspiring others to do the same thing in their own lives.

After reading this book, I decided to start my own version of a happiness project. Being a busy college student, it gets difficult to put happiness on top of your list of priorities. But I decided that I would start doing something small every day that would make me happy. This ranged anywhere from treating myself to a new pair of shoes (this happened more than I'd like to admit) to taking a yoga class to just calling and chatting to my best friend for a few minutes. It wasn't an easy task to start, but once you start making that choice every day, it becomes second nature.

After doing this for about a month or so, I started to realize that that one little thing every day made me more excited for each day. Even on the days when everything seemed to go wrong, I still managed to find happiness in something small. It felt so great to be able to find happiness on the worst of days. One big thing I learned after starting this project was that I took happiness for granted. I have since started to appreciate the little unexpected moments of happiness, and it makes them feel even better.

I wouldn't say that I wasn't happy before starting this project, but I definitely wasn't making it an everyday priority. I don't think a happiness project is something that should ever have a set end. Being happy is something that everyone strives for, but people don't put any effort into making it a part of their everyday lives. The best part of this project for me was finding happiness anywhere. When most people think of happiness they think of love, but I've found that it's in the most unexpected of things, like a call from my best friend or a stranger smiling at you on your walk to class.

Even if you don't think you would be able to start a happiness project of your own, try it anyway. It never hurts to try something new, and you never know what may come from it. I'm nowhere near done with my version of the happiness project, and I hope this article inspires you to start one of you own.