Today I decided to change the name of my blog. It has something to do with changing my outlook on life. It occurred to me that at this time next year, I will be somewhere completely different...a master's student, a working girl; in orlando, tampa, athens, san diego? Who knows? But I have one more semester of no rules. One more semester of Monday Fundays. One more semester of believing that it is appropriate to enter a bar at 11 am and leave it at 2 am.
In the self-reflecting phase that accompanies the end of any year, I began doing some minor alterations to the lifestyle I had developed in hopes of turning it toward the lifestyle I intended. Buying a new planner and perfecting it. Organizing graduate school applications. Setting realistic goals. And thinking about New Year's resolutions. Fortunately, a lovely book fell into my lap called The Happiness Project. It only took a short two pages for me to realize that this was exactly what I needed right now. For those who may be unfamiliar, The Happiness Project is a book about a woman who took a year to tweak her life in certain ways to become happier. So I decided to take her advice, and work on making myself happier in the next semester, hopefully creating a lasting attitude that can follow future Emily to her new destination.
The title came from another source of my happiness. A couple months ago, one of my sorority sisters invited me over to her house and showed us her "woozies" or wine coozies. On black Friday, I picked one out for my mom to give to me for Christmas that said "why limit happy to an hour?" Not being patient, I returned to the store 3 weeks later to find that they were not only out of this particular woozie, but they were out of all the woozies that had fun quotes on them. So I forgot about it until today, when my mom found it in her car and apologized for forgetting about it. How serendipitous for my woozie to remind me that there are 24 hours to be happy every day? And while wine does make me happy, the blog title is about reminding myself not only that we have created an hour in which to relax and be happy, but that I can be happy for more than just that hour.
So my own happiness project, or semester of happiness, or whatever it is I want to call it, begins January 3 (I will be in New Orleans until the 2nd, but normally I am a stickler for timeliness). I have made a list of resolutions and more importantly, goals to help me through the semester of building a better Emily. Unfortunately, it will be a work in progress, and I will probably be constantly changing and refining. But Gretchen Rubin started planning hers in April, I decided this 5 days ago.
The idea is to start on all the habits I'd like to have as an adult, while I still have the irresponsibility of college. Then in 10 years, perhaps I will value exercise in my life, because of the habits I'm creating now. So here's to 2011...the year of change.
For further reading on happiness:
The Happiness Project
Seven Daily Reasons
Eat Pray Love
The Year of Living Biblically
why didn't you tell me about this at the bookstore
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