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BOOK - Happier at Home
Gretchen Rubin

DIANA CARROLL - Reviewer
INDAILY - 17.1.13

GRETCHEN Rubin's premise is simple: wouldn't it be nice to find more happiness in your everyday, real life? This isn't about the dramatic, life-changing happiness that might come from winning Lotto or losing weight or trekking the Andes. Happier at Home is about doing what you do but enjoying it more. And being a happy person is inevitably contagious, making those around you feel a bit better about their place in the world, too.

Rubin's previous book, The Happiness Project was all about big-picture ideas relating to happiness and unhappiness. In this book, she focuses on the home as the place where we can all enjoy the most peace, satisfaction, love and harmony. Once you get inside and close the door, home should be where the heart is and where true happiness can be found.

Beginning in September, the traditional end of the summer holiday season in the US, Rubin sets about her happiness campaign, deciding to focus on one aspect of happiness in her own home each month. September is "possessions", October is "marriage" (husband Jamie is supportive if rather nonplussed by the whole thing), November is "parenthood" (the Rubins have two daughters) and so on, right through to the following May.

The book's strength lies in its autobiographical element. It is part memoir and part self-help, but all through Rubin reminds us that this is what worked for her and you, dear reader, must find out what works for you, allowing her to show rather than tell. She also places a strong emphasis on the importance of duty, or doing what she knows is right even when it doesn't make her happy. Visiting grumpy old relatives or cleaning the bath are not activities you would describe as fun, but they do bring a certain virtuous happiness and not doing them can make you feel bad about yourself. In an age of immediate gratification, it is a useful reminder to take a holistic view of happiness.

There is a lovely guilty pleasure to reading Happier at Home, as if it's somehow self-indulgent to spend all this time thinking about making yourself happier. But then you can redeem yourself by knowing that if you're happier your loved ones will also be happier – so it's completely selfless, really.

No matter how happy or unhappy you think you are now, there will be one or two ideas in Happier at Home that will help you get more out of the life you live. As Rubin reminds us, the days might feel long sometimes but the years are all too short. Read it, do it, now.

ENDS.