What does it take to be happy in life? A book on the subject is catching on, on campus. A project that began as a women’s book group has morphed into a discussion series on a single book. It’s called, “The How of Happiness.”
"It’s a book on positive psychology written by Sonia Lyubomirsky and she has done about 25 years of research that make people happy," says Katie Gordon, who runs the book project as part of her role in outreach at Virginia Tech. She says it may be the amount of research in this book about what makes people happy that has caught the attention of students there. There are now two groups discussing “The How of Happiness”-- one meets Monday evenings and the other, Friday afternoons.
"And they read one or two chapters every week, practice the behaviors that the author outlines and comes back and discusses and sort of debriefs how that felt to practice the behaviors and discussion on how that behavior can improve your life."
The bookby Sonja Lyubomirsky a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside came out in 2007. At the core of her book is the idea that a person’s happiness is not predetermined by genes, or life circumstance, although those do play a role, but that the research suggests, the rest is all up to you and….
"That happiness is something you can create it’s not something that you search for or you have to find it’s something you can make in your own life doing very reasonable and practical things.”
And while there are numerous self-help books people may find useful, Gordon sees the group discussion as key to the experience to overcoming some of the greatest challenges to personal happiness.
"Because it can be so isolating feeling that everybody else has got it down but you’re struggling through it and then to hear that others also struggle with the same things I think is really sort of a nice moment for people and then also sort of and empowering to hear how other people have gotten through it."
Gordon says that while the ideas and exercises in the book resonate with college students, they apply to people of all ages and backgrounds. She has presented the topic at conferences and presentations partnering with various departments and other projects. She expects to add another discussion section to the 10-week series on “The How of Happiness” next semester.
