Choosing Happiness

Bursting with creative ideas and brimming with illuminating anecdotes, this concise, joyful, and practical book shows how to find -- and forge -- happiness in the large and small events of everyday life. Based on her more than thirty years as a noted thinker and speaker on personal contentment, Alexandra Stoddard shares what she has learned about the small but significant changes you can make in your mind, heart, and surroundings to be happier day by day.A gentle and fun first step is to quickly write down ten words that define who you are -- perhaps beaches, family, food, home -- and what else? To further expand your awareness, select one word and write down twenty-five words that come to mind. These and dozens of other inventive ideas will help you develop the self-knowledge to pursue happiness wisely and well.In challenging times, it is easy to question whether happiness is a choice. Alexandra Stoddard affirms not only that it is possible to choose happiness but that happiness is the best choice we can make. It is the "first principle" of life that unites humankind because it is what we all desire.Happiness lies in the passions we pursue and in the pressures we decline. It is in knowing how to work and when to play. It is in the treasured objects we keep nearby and in the ordinary moments we elevate into small celebrations. It is in the note we write to a friend and the kindness we show a stranger. It is in the colors we love and the music that transports us. It may be as simple as sunlight on your face; as sudden as a shared smile; as sensuous as a single flower on your desk, candles on your nightstand, or cookies hot from the oven. Happiness is what you make it, where you make it. Happiness is our best choice.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Self-Help, Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.