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Jordan Donels
Dr. C
First Year Seminar
30 October 2014
My Happiness Project
Money, love, relationships, material goods, and success are all things that people claim
will make them happy, but when opportunity strikes for all of these things long term happiness
doesnt always follow. I found this surprisingly interesting to the point I wanted to explore more.
What is my idea of happiness? Is it different for other people? How can I improve my happiness?
All of these questions haunt me because I felt if I knew the answer I would be happier and so
would the people around me. These questions racing in my head forced me to go deeper into the
idea of happiness.
According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King, and Ed Diener happy people are better
off. Happy people are proven to have better social skills, more physically active, better at coping,
and overall more successful (Lyubomirsky, King, Diener 325-330). They proved that people that
are happy actually have more friends. More friends mean more social support. Happy people
have more motivations to be active, and are able to maturely cope with lifes problems
(Lyubomirsky, King, Diener 328-330). If I manage to increase my happiness then I have a higher
chance of become more successful in all aspects of my life, including my family.
As a child my mother was my hero. Granted she couldnt always be there for me I
admired her for her bravery and her ability to always be happy in the worst of situations. My
moms hard childhood gave me the urge to figure out what her happiness was. My interview
with her took a surprising turn when her emotions poured out to me. My mothers happiness is

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unlike anything I have ever seen before. She is the happiest when the people she loves are happy.
My mothers selflessness for putting her family before herself brought me to tears, but also got
me thinking more about happiness. I had always though happiness was a personal thing, and that
I would always be the happiest when things go right for me, but its not always like that.
Happiness can be selfless; now my job was to figure out if my happiness was selfless or all about
me.
Happiness is a confusing topic for most people. Before researching the topic of happiness
I didnt really know what happiness meant to me. I had always thought that I was happy, but
when I sat down and really thought about it, I realized things could really change. I wanted to
increase my happiness as much as I could. I could not do this until I found a base of where my
happiness was, and figure out just what was my idea of happiness.
Defining happiness was a hard concept for me to understand. On my search for what
happiness meant to me, I looked at what happiness meant to the people around me. I found that
no one had the same definition of happiness, so I searched for my definition of happiness. My
research bought me upon a quote by Aristotle, and he said happiness is the meaning and the
purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. I love this quote because it really
captures my view on happiness. Living without happiness isnt really living, so I decided that in
order to really live my life I need to become happy in every aspect of my life. Now the only
question is what aspects did I need to improve?
In Sonja Lyubomirskys book The How of Happiness she provides a test that shows what
aspect of happiness would most benefit you while improving your happiness. Out of twelve ways
to improve your happiness I scored the highest on learning to forget, taking care of your body,
coping, and staying engaged (Lyubomirsky 79). Lyubomirskys test gave me a base to go off of

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when trying to find a good way to improve my happiness in my research. I had to think harder
than just some test to know exactly what it was that would improve my happiness the most.
Thinking about my fears surprisingly helped me. I am deeply afraid of losing the people closest
to me. The people around me mean the world to me, and without them I know I would never be
happy. I decided working on a close relationship of mine that has not had the best of luck and
could make me more happy.
Everyone has experienced that first love. Its an amazing feeling that is unexplainable. I
have had this feeling with my ex-boyfriend, Keaton Merschmen. We had been together since
September 22, 2010. As a child I always imagined that I would have a fairytale love story, and I
had that with Keaton. Everyone talks about the butterfly feeling, but I had no idea how
amazing that feeling is. I felt them for the first time at my first homecoming dance.
I was swept off my feet when my date drove up in an expensive sports car. My dress was
beautiful, and I had the perfect date to go with it. The expression on Keatons face when I first
saw him was unforgettable. It was like we were the only too in the room, and nothing would
keep us apart. As we drove to the dance I didnt know what to expect; my hand were sweating
from either excitement or nervousness. When we got there I could hear the loud booming of the
music all the way from the parking lot. We were blinded by the bright lights as we walked onto
the dance floor. The thought of embarrassing myself paralyzed me, and it wasnt until Keaton
took my hand that I felt comfortable enough to dance. We dance our hearts out until the song
The Only Exception by Paramore came on. It was our first slow dance. I was unsure how to slow
dance, but Keaton wasnt. As the song was about to come to an end, I was caught off guard by
something amazing, my first kiss. I wanted to live in that moment forever, and that moment will
forever be one of the happiest moments of my life.

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All of my high school experiences involved Keaton. He is my best friend and the only
person I could confide in. I truly love him, but we have hit a rough patch. On February 14, 2014
we had a terrible break up that lead me to having slight depression and increased anxiety. Since
then we have been trying to patch things up, but have been unsuccessful. Keaton currently goes
to school two hours away at The University of Iowa. Communication is something that he and I
fail at. My athletic schedule and busy classes make me unable to talk to Keaton in the evenings;
His busy engineering major makes him extremely busy in the mornings. We get extremely close
to getting back together, and then one of us does something we shouldnt because of lack in
communication. This is what gave me the idea to improve my relationship with him, starting by
decreasing our stress.
My stress from my relationship is caused by the tension we have between us. Our tension
comes from our inability to communicate with each other over important topics. We fail to talk
about how we feel about the way our relationship is going and that causes fights. When we fight
we become stressed and the tension builds. With tension and stress in our relationship its nearly
impossible to communicate efficiently. David King and Anita DeLongis proved in their article
called When Couples Disconnect that tension in a relationship leads to stress (467). King and
DeLongis proved that stress could be the source of my lack of communication. I can use their
findings to show why I would want to decrease my stress.
Stress from my relationship with Keaton can cause my overall happiness fall. Holly
Schiffrin researched this idea in her case study called Stressed and Happy. Schiffrin came
upon the idea that stress and happiness is inversely related during her study on one hundred
college student (37). When the students were observed Schiffrin found that eighty-five percent of
the students were stressed out. The decrease in their happiness allowed Schiffrin to imply that

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there is an existing inverse relationship between happiness and stress (Schiffrins 38). Schiffrins
findings helped me by confirming my idea that my stress about my relationship with Keaton is
causing my happiness to fall. Not only can stress and happiness cause problems in my
relationship it can cause health problems.
Junji Kageyamas article "Happiness and Sex Difference in Life Expectancy" talks about
the idea that stress effects on happiness can affect your life expectancy too (966). When your
stress builds up, your life can become hectic. Not only is my stress in my relationship critical to
my happiness, but its critical to my health. Stress on the body causes a significant decrease in
life expectancy, making this research even more important (966). I can imply that that the
increase of happiness, will also increase my life expectancy.
As I said earlier I am happy, but there are some aspects in life I would like to improve.
Keaton was always there for me when I needed a shoulder or even just a person to talk to. Its
hard to picture where life would be at without him. Improving my relationship with Keaton will
not only make my love life happier but will strengthen my support group, bring back those happy
memories, and I will have my best friend back. Now that I know this could make me happier,
Im pursuing a research project that will hopefully improve my happiness.
The project will be called My Happiness Project. My project is not an easy one day task;
it will push to make a change to improve my happiness. A happiness project is all about
improving your happiness. Not only to improve but to maintain that happiness, by experimenting
a small change that increases your happiness. First I have researched other information that I can
use in my project to form a better understanding. I used this research to shape my idea of
happiness. After I had a better understanding on what I was doing I could start my experiment.

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To have something to compare in the end of my research I found my base happiness
using Ed Dieners satisfaction with life scale and Sonja Lyubomirskys subjective happiness
scale. I took these tests multiple times before I started my change to become happier. These
scores all fluctuated because of how I was feeling that day. Some days I was in a big fight with
Keaton, and some days we were better than ever.
In Ed Dieners satisfaction of life scale I scored an average of 21 out of 35 possible
points. Diener says that someone scoring in this range is slightly satisfied in life. He describes
slightly satisfied as someone that has areas in their life they want to improve (Understanding
Scores on the Satisfaction with Life Scale). Right now I would have to agree with this, but I
wouldnt always. Some days (like on the first test) I feel like the world is slowly falling down on
top of me. How well the relationships around me are going has a huge impact on my happiness,
and if one is suffering so does my happiness. This would explain why I always had lower scores
on Dieners test.
Sonja Lyubomirskys test measures your happiness. My average for this test is 4.4 out of
a 7 scale. The average score that most people get is 4.5, and college students tend to score lower.
My score has stayed consistent through all of my tests, so its hard to argue my results. The test
scores I receives showed me that I am just below the average level. Being below average tells me
that I have aspects in my life that could use some work (Lyubomirsky 33).
Improving my happiness wasnt going to be an easy task; it will take a lot of planning
and preparation. Starting with the planning I had to figure out what about my relationship I
wanted to improve, and how I would do it. Considering Keaton lives two hours away I couldnt
do anything that would require physical changes, so I decided that an emotional approach would
be easiest. Every day I would have a meaningful conversation in attempt to improve our

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relationship. To see if my happiness was increased, due to my change, I would have to keep track
of my day to day activities and emotions.
I was shown a very useful website that would help me track my happiness. This website
is The Happiness tracker. You sign up, put in exactly how many time, and between what times
you would like the website to text you. These texts contained a survey that kept track of what
you were doing and how happy you were at that exact moment. I received a text three times a
day. Once I reached 100 surveys my tracking will give me graphs that show me my happiness
statistics. Once I receive my statistic I can interpret them and use it to show my progress. What
this doesnt show is how I was feeling that day in my own words.
Knowing exactly how I felt every day, after I talked to Keaton, will be vital to keeping
track of how well my relationship had improved. Keeping a journal will be easy and efficient.
My journal will be kept on my computer, and I use my computer every day. In the entries I will
include what I had done that day and how my daily events made me feel. Once all entries are
finished I can compare the days and see how I felt each day. The comparisons can be interpreted
into an increase, decrease, or unchanged amount of communication between Keaton and me. An
increase will mean my experiment work, but if it decreased or doesnt change then it didnt
work.
My experiment lasted three weeks; one week without the change, and two weeks with the
change. I did run into a couple problems during my experiment. At the very beginning Keaton
and I got in a big fight that left us on bad terms. I thought for a moment the experiment was
about to be a bust until Keaton had a sudden realization. The next day after our fight Keatons
emotions poured out of him like a waterfall. He said all the things a girl wants to hear, and
something I never thought I would hear him say. My favorite thing was that he would do

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anything for me, even if it meant buying a bus ticket every weekend just to see me. Obviously I
know that wouldnt happen, but the fact he would go out of his way to ride the bus for three and
a half hours just to see me for one night melted my heart. From there on Keaton and I had a
meaningful conversation, good or bad, every night. Our increase of meaningful conversations
shows we did increase our communication.
In my findings in my happiness tracking, I found that I was the happiest when I am
relaxing. Not thinking about all the unhappy things in my life was a refreshing break. This means
that I am the happy when I am with my friends just hanging out in our room or at volleyball.
Class is also a happy place for me because I am getting away from life for at least fifty minutes.
My fifty minutes in class is a great way to clear my mind. I dont think about the fighting that
may be going on between Keaton and I, so this makes me happier. In most of my classes I
actually enjoy learning. This year I have been getting good grades, which makes me want to go
to class. I need to take time to do the relaxing things and just have me time.
Along with the finding from my happiness tracker I kept journal. This journal was written
in everyday to give me an overall view on what I had been up to. I saw a reoccurring pattern with
when Keaton and I were getting along. When my entire contained positive interactions with
Keaton my happiness was rated higher. There is a direct relationship between our
communication and my happiness. I was always happier when we were talking through
problems, and having a positive conversation.
The idea that when Keaton and I are happy, I am happier can be supported by Dieners
research on subjective well-being. He states in this article that without a good base of subject
well-being it is nearly impossible to achieve overall happiness (Subjective Well-Being, 1). Diener
also states that In defining happiness, it is common sense to combine the frequency and

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intensity of pleasant emotions. That is, the people considered to be the happiest are those who are
intensely happy more of the time (3). When Keaton and I have a moment when we are
intensely happy I considered myself happy.
When I began this experiment I had no idea how much work it was actually going to take,
but in the end it was all worth it. I became happier when I improved my communication with
Keaton because it made our relationship stronger. All I had to do was talk to him more, and tell
him how I am really feeling. Our great communication allowed us to work through our problems,
and talk about what really mattered. I am happier now then I have ever been, and I can thank this
experiment for pushing me outside my comfort zone. It showed me that with hard work
happiness is possible; you just need to find out what your happiness is, and than improve upon
that.
I believe that everyone is capable of happiness. The trick is to find what it is in your life
that might make you happy, and it doesnt have to be some big thing. Your happiness can be as
small as telling the person you love how much they mean to you, or telling a stranger a nice
compliment. Happiness is like a blank page; it can be whatever you make it. Setting aside a
couple minutes a day to find and then increase your happiness is all it takes.

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Works Cited

"A Quote by Aristotle." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., 2014. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Diener, Ed. "Subjective well-being: The Science of Happiness and a Proposal for a National
Index." American psychologist. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
Diener, Ed. "Understanding Scores on the Satisfaction with Life Scale." Ed Diener: Joseph R.
Smiley Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology. Senior Scientist for the Gallup
Organization. U of Illinois at Urbandale-Champaign. 13, Feb. 2006. PDF. 17 Nov. 2014.
King, David B., and Anita DeLongis. "When Couples Disconnect: Rumination And Withdrawal
As Maladaptive Responses To Everyday Stress." Journal of Family Psychology 28.4
(2014): 460-469. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Lyubomirsky, Sonja, Laura King, and Ed Diener. "The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect:
Does Happiness Lead t o Success?." Psychological Bulletin 131.6 (2005): 803-855.
PsycARTICLES. Web. 18 Nov. 2014.
Lyubomirsky, Sonja. The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want.
New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Schiffrin, Holly, and S. Nelson. "Stressed and Happy? Investigating the Relationship between
Happiness and Perceived Stress." Journal

of Happiness Studies 11.1 (2010): 33-39.

Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Oct. 2014.

Kageyama, Junji. "Happiness and Sex Difference in Life Expectancy." Journal of Happiness
Studies 13.5 (2012): 947-967. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014