Week One Report on the (Happiness Project) Project

Okay, so this week didn't exactly pan out like I wanted. Although I wanted to focus mainly on school, that proved difficult when I only had classes three of the five days. On Tuesday, I had an IB SL work day and Wednesday, I went on a college visit to Northwest Missouri State University. So I suppose, if you want to be technical, those days did in fact focus on school. I got a lot of work done on Tuesday for the three IB classes I’m taking, and at NWMSU, I realized how much I would like going to school there. Northwest has been the only school to make me rethink going to K-State, which is where I've always seen myself going for college. Northwest has nice amenities, closer to home, (which I haven’t decided yet as a pro or con) and the tuition is about half as much. All I know for sure at this point is that I have some serious thinking to do.

As for the other aspects of the first week of the (Happiness Project) Project, I think I’m doing pretty well. I’ve been keeping up with all my homework, although getting out of a procrastination habit has been a little difficult. Just sitting on the couch seems like a much better alternative, but I know that if I wait I’ll just find more reasons not to do it. Such as on Thursday, I knew I needed to practice for the chair placement auditions that evening, so I brought home my clarinet and actually got it out and practiced for roughly an hour and a half to prepare. I was much less nervous for the audition than if I hadn't practiced first.

The one part of my plan I haven’t spent too much time on keeping things tidy. I managed to clear off my desk that was littered with papers and other various junk to make room for my new desktop computer my dad received from someone who was no longer interested in it. However, past that, I really haven’t touched my room.

One thing I have been enjoying is getting enough sleep. No, I haven’t gotten a full eight hours every day, but I do pay more attention to when I’m going to bed. Waking up after a good night’s sleep is wonderful and I have a much more relaxed start to my day. I took Rubin’s advice to go to bed as soon as you feel tired, so on Thursday, I went to my room at 8:30 and turned off the lights, which is also something she recommended. I applied this from her book, because she started her project with boosting her energy, so I knew it would be a good idea to start getting more sleep right off the bat. 

As a side note, I have also been keeping up on the mini-project I set up for all three weeks where I write down all the happy and/or good things that happen. Haidt talks about how no one person is an island, and so people need people. Nearly the entire contents of my jar is related to others and when I've spent time with them. It's becoming obvious that I'm going to need another jar before too long.