Working towards happiness

Here's an interesting idea, taking form as a blog, on the way to becoming a book: The Happiness Project. Gretchen Rubin is a lawyer with top credentials, having been editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal and clerk for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Her goal with this is to test ideas about what leads to happiness, or, here, I'll quote her:

I'm working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT--a memoir about the year I spent test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t. On this daily blog, I recount some of my adventures and insights as I grapple with the challenge of being happier.

Post that caught my eye:

How Do You Remember to Count to Ten?

I'm quick-tempered, and one of my greatest happiness-project challenges is to bite my tongue; an excellent way to boost my happiness is to keep my resolution to "Leave things unsaid." In the end, I'm always happier when I don't make some angry or snarky comment. But easier said than done.

I'm all in favor of increasing the general level of happiness, one person at a time. (That lets out such government-type measures as culling the unhappy, or soma for the masses.)