When most people think about happiness, they mainly start by daydreaming and pondering about LOTS and LOTS of MONEY, thinking this is the way to it. Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, on the other hand, systematically dissects the meaning of happiness and tries to find practical ways of achieving the individual dissected pieces of happiness. She test drives the latest theories, past philosophies and popular culture on happiness on herself and family. This is not a profound book on the meaning of happiness but a collection of essays detailing one woman's application of an analytical methodology based on practical experiments to find out what made her happy and unhappy. Although some of her thoughts and methods seems frivolous at times, she did present a fresh approach on finding out what makes one happy.  

Essentially, the author plans out a monthly "strategy" based on a grand central theme  to make herself more mindful of her happiness psychology and environment, keeping tabs of her progress of the actionable items she set forth  through resolution charts etc.  After executing these items, she notes her feelings, whether happy or whatever. 

Opinion

What was fascinating this book is not her ideas of happiness but her methodology in finding out what made her happy. For anyone in search of finding out what makes them happy, her method may be it. She takes a large intangible ideal like happiness and approaches it as a parameter that can be manipulated. The method of testing such intangible concepts such as temperament, personality to investigate oneself is eye-opening. "Know thyself" is such a simple phrase but this command is one of the most difficult commands to execute and so, we end up doing things we are not suited to and often feel miserable.