The Happiness Project

A year ago, I discovered what I thought was my non-evil twin--a woman named Gretchen Rubin who is from Kansas City and happened to be writing a book on happiness. Only instead of endlessly carping about things, as I usually do, she fills her blog with advice on how we can improve our outlook.
The Happiness Project: or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle and Generally Have More Fun (HarperCollins 2009) hit the shelves last December.
The lengthy subtitle pretty much sums it up. Rubin's idea seems to be that if you just change yourself enough--if you stop nagging, remember everyone's birthday, start exercising, organize your closets, make more time for your kids while at the same time getting to bed earlier--you will feel happier.
She knows it works because in the end, she does feel happier. She backs that up with anecdotes written by readers of her blog who have followed her plan, which includes charts in which you grade yourself daily on how you're doing. (I'll go out on a sexist limb here. It seems really unlikely that many men would take all this trouble.)
You see, Rubin recently lost her job and is recovering from a serious illness and...no wait. I've got that wrong. Rubin was editor of the Yale Law Journal and clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor but now writes books and lives in New York with her husband and two children, whose two sets of doting grandparents visit often.
Then one day on a bus, it hit her. She just wasn't happy enough. She should try to do better. The huge list of new chores and duties was not really an expression of guilt and self punishment for her success. It really wasn't
Okay, okay. I won't go down the sarcasm road. Rubin is well aware that there are plenty of people worse off than she is. She makes that point early on.
So I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. But I have to point out that she doesn't always make it easy.
The cocktail party on page 13, for instance. An acquaintance attacks her idea.
"And anyway," he persisted, "you're not a regular person. You're highly educated, you're a full-time writer, you live on the Upper East Side, your husband has a good job. What do you have to say to someone in the Midwest?"
Yes, the Midwest. That hellhole where regular people live who don't have good jobs or a lot of education. And they also don't have cocktail parties.
I can never imagine this conversation without turning it into a little movie. After that line, the camera would weave through the living room, past the canapes, picking up bits of conversations along the way. Some well-dressed men are gathered in a corner. The punch line: "...and we were selling those things, and I mean they were hot. But all they were was worthless paper. What are you gonna tell the people in the Midwest?" (Fade to sounds of uproarious laughter)
There's also this sentence: "But when my clerkship with Justice O'Connor drew to a close, I couldn't figure out what job I wanted next."
Why does that irritate me so much? It's not an unreasonable thought. I guess I just can't help applying it to people I know. "When I was laid off after 20 years, I couldn't figure out what job I wanted next."
Which brings me to the central point. The Happiness Project is the victim of horrible, horrible timing and questionable editorial judgment.
The research and blog were started back in early 2006. March of that year is the first entry in Rubin's blog archives.
The biggest recession in our generation's memory started, by most accounts, in 2007. The stock market went into crisis in fall of 2008.
At that point, someone should have said, "maybe we ought to rethink this. It seems like the obstacles to happiness right now are bigger than cluttered closets and lack of exercise. People are losing their homes. If we print this, people are liable to say your projects are just icing roses on your wedding cake of a life."
Toward the end of the book, Rubin does try to address that. She says she wants to develop happier habits now, so she can fall back on them when something bad does happen.
I'm skeptical about that. The mild discontent she's dealing with now will have no relationship whatever to severe loss that could happen in the future. And if the bad thing is something financial, it will be harder still, because many of her projects involve buying something--a spot in an exercise class, a file box, bluebirds for her collection.
I just don't have the faith that these things will make her better able to ward off the blues in bad times. Because I know it doesn't work.
I used to do this sort of thing, but in reverse. As a kid, I'd imagine in vivid detail all the very worst things that could happen to me and my family, and how I might deal with them. I thought of this as a sort of vaccination against the schizophrenia that struck my mother in her 20s. In my child's mind, I thought she must gotten sick because she was not prepared enough for bad things. My mental constitution was going to be stronger.
Did it make me less neurotic as an adult? You can ask my friends. But I sorta doubt it.
Her more compelling argument is that she wants to be able to say she appreciated the good times while she had them. That, I can't argue with.
Rubin had a great opportunity in The Happiness Project. She had the ear of a book publisher and an agent. And she had a historic moment in history--a time when we all could use some happiness.
What we needed was something more.
What we got was a bestseller.

Excuse me while I become starry-eyed for a moment

I know this is going to make some people nutso, but I never feel so American as when I'm watching the MLS.
I'm not talking about the wealth and world domination that causes so many to chant "We're Number One!" This is not the chest-thumping pride that comes with having things our own way across the globe for decades, with having the biggest military or being able to boss small countries about what form capitalism should take. None of that feels all that good to me anyway.
This is more the American feeling from the turn of the 19th century into the 20th. It's the feeling that everything is grand and new and possible, with a little elbow grease. It's the wide-eyed enthusiasm for new inventions and world's fairs.It's the same feeling I used to get at House on the Rock in Wisconsin, with its rooms full of mechanical marvels.
It's optimism. And it feels great to just succumb to it.
There aren't many chances to do that in America these days.
For the most part, we've done our building and growing. Our best inventing days sometimes seem to be behind us.
Traditional American sports are larded with money and fans. But the MLS is still an exciting frontier. Attendance is on the rise, youth players are sticking with it into their teens. They're adding teams and building stadiums.
And best of all, it's still a small enough sport that your season ticket can get you in to numerous events where you can talk to players and get autographs. I've shaken hands with Kansas City Wizard Jimmy Conrad several times. Try saying that about an NFL star, or any Premiership player in England for that matter.
Speaking of England, when I was there a few weeks ago, I had a chance to observe how they reacted to the terrible spanking they got at the hands of Germany in the World Cup. Here's the Sun:

Other papers were only marginally more restrained. In fact, there was endless carping, despair and calls for firings.
I'm not saying Americans aren't capable of the same vitriol. If there was an NFL world cup and the American team lost that badly, I'm sure the columnists would have been comparably irate.
But there isn't an NFL world cup--or a baseball world cup or a basketball world cup. And that's just the point. By taking the risk of competing in a sport where we have a disadvantage, we become American again. It's not about the winning. It's about believing.
My family watched the US's last game--against Ghana--at Ye Olde Cock in London. (Yes, that's really the name.) The bar was packed with American ex-pats. When the final whistle blew, the crowd spontaneously broke into The Star Spangled Banner.
It was the one and only time I've ever felt moved by our national anthem.

This is Soccer Week

Forget the Rolling Stones' refrain. Sometimes you can get what you want--and a little extra besides.
Not too many days ago, I lamented that some publicity-seeking faux streakers were more fun to watch than the Kansas City Wizards lately. The Wizards had just lost to Chiv....well, let's not talk about it.
Because the Wizards have redeemed themselves. And then some. What did they do?
*They got a record crowd of over 50,000 to come out to Arrowhead to watch a match.
*They convinced one of the top sports franchises in the world to make an appearance in Kansas City. Manchester United, of England, has also been our family's favorite English team for years.
*They got us all in to see the newly refurbished Arrowhead before any of the Chiefs season ticket holders. (Sorry, Chiefs fans who are not rich. Your area does not look that much different. But I hear the luxury boxes are nice.)
And, oh yeah, one more thing.
They won! It was 2-1, with the Red Devils' only score coming from a penalty kick. That same penalty forced the Wizards to play one man down for the entire second half. But they won anyway.
Which caused one more good thing to happen: It shut the mouths--momentarily, anyway--of all those soccer haters.
You know the ones. "Soccer will never catch on here because Americans need high scores, they can't pay attention long enough, the game's boring," and yap yap yap.
Well, here's a look at the crowd we saw yesterday:

The north side stands were just as full. And while this wasn't a sell-out, it was the biggest crowd ever to watch a match in Kansas City. It keeps this city in the running for a future World Cup game, if the World Cup does end up in the US again. (For more, check out the Star's soccer blog The Full 90.) Just for that extra little dollop of goodness to put things over the top, the Wizards became the first MLS team to beat Manchester Utd.
Yeah, sorry haters. But the beautiful game is catching on here (check out this story in the New York Times about that.) And personally, it feels good to be on the winning side of a trend for a change. Lord knows, it gets frustrating when your favorite TV shows and food flavors are always getting discontinued for lack of sales.
And so, because I am optimistic about the future of soccer in this country and the Kansas City Wizards in particular, I declare this

SOCCER WEEK

Go Wizards!

If you already read Monday's post, please be sure to go back and read the post script.

Risky Business

"Sometimes you've just gotta say, 'What the f***.'"
True when the Tom Cruise said it in Risky Business.
And true today.
Here's the situation: We've been living for over a year with a huge reduction in pay. We've denied ourselves. We've cut back. We've jiggered and re-jiggered our spending. We've looked for other sources of income. Yet somehow we managed to keep the "severance" money and even add to it a little bit. It's been a long, hard slog.
Financial sages would tell us to keep at it, to save and save because we in no way have enough of a cushion for the next time the big boys in Wall Street decide they need an infusion. Keep living small, lowering our expectations and dreams. Adopt the attitude of a hunted gazelle.
And it is at this point that we must reply, "What the f***."
Because I'm tired--we both are--of the feeling that someone else gets to tell us how to spend our money. And of the feeling that, now we've come down in the world, we shouldn't expect to own nice things or take nice trips.
And so a plan was hatched. We'd plunder a huge chunk of that cushion money we should be fearfully clinging to. We'd take a vacation--a big one--to visit my brother and his partner in Sweden. With a week's side trip to see the sights in London.
Crazily irresponsible? Maybe. But Irene is only with us three more years. Life is short. I don't want to spend it like a hunted gazelle (ala the advice of Dave Ramsey). I want to be living and doing.
So we went.
And it was so, so worth it.
We used to take vacation car trips all the time when the boys were little, but years of middle-class erosion have made us cut back on those. I'd almost forgotten how great it is to get the family (in this case, the three of us. Our oldest son came on his own dime, and the middle son was not able to come because of other commitments.) all together on a great adventure--seeing new things, eating new foods, learning about a different part of the world.
For a while, we could enjoy ourselves in happy denial of what's proved to be a dismal year for income. For a while, we didn't feel like people being cast aside.
And it did shake a few things loose for me, creatively. So who knows? Maybe I'll find a way to make that money back.
In the meantime, we're carefully paying back the credit card (yes, the credit card) out of the remainder of that slush fund. Hard times could come again. There could be layoffs.
But what the f***. No one can repossess our memories.

Post script: In my haste to get this post done quickly, I left out one very beautiful thing about this trip. After we got to Sweden, Mike (my brother) and Faith insisted on paying for most of the biggest expenses while there--hotels, tickets to London, etc. It was so generous...I get choked up even now thinking about it. So thanks, Mike and Faith, for your hospitality and your generosity.

Forget the Starting Eleven Girls. This was better.

One streaker at a ball game: A little unusual, yes. It may get a mention on the evening news. But it's not unheard of.
But four streakers? All wearing matching flesh-colored thongs? And not one news outlet speaks a word?
Something is up, my friends.
The streakers provided the only entertainment an otherwise dismal match Saturday evening between the Kansas City Wizards and Chivas USA.
It happened near the end of the half-time break. A few players--possibly reserves--were out on the field, kicking the ball around when suddenly this guy rips off an obviously tear-away outfit and starts running. After watching him for a while we notice there's another nearly nude guy sprinting from another part of the pitch, and then another one at the far end. I think there were four in all, but there may have been just three. Honestly, it's hard to concentrate on the numbers when there's a bevy of jockstrap-clad fitties capering like wood nymphs just in front of you.
Here's the YouTube video, from a vantage not too far from where we sat in the Cauldron.




As streaking goes, one is pretty much the usual number in 2010. And loincloths? Pfft. Exposure is the whole idea.
So an apparently organized streak with such consideration for children in the stands is unusual. It should have merited at least a couple of words from the local news. But nothing on the channel we checked. And no mention in the Star. Very strange unless...
The whole thing was a stunt for an MTV show.
That's the buzz on the web-o-sphere and it does make sense. Apparently streaking at a sports event is on the to-do-before-you-die list at The Buried Life--a show which, coincidentally, has a cast of four young men. Here's a link to their Facebook page, where their friends congratulate them.
It also begs the question: How much did the Wizards front office participate in this? Did they seek it out for the publicity when the show airs, or were they as surprised as everyone else?
In any case, it was an evening brightener as Kansas City slogged through the match against Chivas, who hadn't won a game in two months. The score? You don't even want to know. The Wizards are going to have to tighten it up to keep from being humiliated in the friendly against Manchester United on the 25th.
But I forgot. This is an optimism blog. So forget the depressing score. Thanks, MTV.

PS Yes, I have been gone for a while. More just as soon as I get caught up from a great trip.