The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau – What’s on Your Happiness To-Do List?

By Kenda - September, 16th 2014

We all have ‘to-do’ lists. I have plenty of them. What I need to do for work, for home, for the kids, get at the grocery store…the lists are endless. What I didn’t have was a to-list for myself and my own happiness. When we think of happiness in the bee hive of our workday, we might consider paid bills, completed work or even completing one of the other to-do lists sitting on our desks. But what really makes me happy? What can bolster my inner joy so much that the other to-do lists are just something along the way? I admit, I had to think about it.

Sometimes we fear making a happiness list because we might feel selfish. I know that was a problem for me. Some of my happiness to-do items don’t have any connection to being a mother or a wife. Or do they? Maybe questing for those things that are special to me would, in the end, make me better at both being a mother and a wife.

My Happiness To-Do List

1. Become an Organized Person
   This may not sound very exciting, but for me it’s a thrill. I’ve always been rather cluttered (my mother says it’s because of my creativity knowing no bounds) and it bothers me at times. Often, even when I find time to do something for myself, my space is such chaos that I can’t enjoy it. I know training myself to organize without it being an all day work detail would make me much happier overall.
2. Go To Japan
   All my life I’ve been in love with Japan. The culture, the people, the traditions and the food. Oh yes…the food. I collect all things Geisha and have always known that one day I would participate in a real tea ceremony. I’ve written it all out, like a travel dream board. I want to go to Kyoto, specifically the Gion Geisha district. Just drop me there and I’ll be in my own wonderland. I’d be happy to travel to other areas, but Kyoto is all I need. One day I will get there.
3. Do Things Worth Telling the World About
   I am not a very open person, by nature. It’s not that I’m private, I’m really not – I just don’t ever think, “Hey I need to tell people about this.”  I realized through my past blogging years that, while I do things that are cool or fun for the family, I don’t go on adventures so I don’t have much to tell. I don’t stretch my boundaries. I don’t do things or go places ‘just because’.  I’m very planned and methodical and maybe a little bit of throwing care to the wind is just what I need.
4. Learn To Enjoy the Outdoors More Often
   If I were a cat, I’d be an indoor cat. More than that, I’d be the cat that – when you try to let them out – they hiss and hide under the couch. I defend it constantly (especially being married to a man who would sleep outside every night if he could). It’s not about sweat. It’s not about sun. I have just never felt the draw of being outside. A sunset is beautiful, but I can’t watch it for an hour. My mother loves the beach, but after 30 minutes I’m done and ready to relax back at the condo. I have a feeling finding something in nature I connect with would bring me a new kind of happiness. I just have to figure out what part speaks to me – and explore it.

If you find yourself looking for that next thing, striving to learn, wanting to accomplish or just enjoy – it might be time to make your own quest list and start your Happiness Pursuit…

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The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau

One of the most common laments among people everywhere is how easy it is to feel that routine has taken over our lives. Chris Guillebeau is not one to bogged down by routine, but instead takes a “make every day count” approach to life.

With this attitude he completed his goal of traveling to every country in the world by age 35; and has learned that happiness comes from incremental striving (a “quest”) where we see taking shape, right in front of our eyes, the concrete evidence of what our life has been building toward. Throughout his 193-country journey, Chris met hundreds of questers like himself who were committed to years-in-the-making projects: jaw dropping, and often thought provoking.

Attempts to blaze a new artistic trail, reach an intellectual summit, change the world through philanthropy, or undergo an endurance-testing adventure—just to name a few.

In The Happiness of Pursuit, Guillebeau draws on interviews with hundreds of fellow questers, revealing their secret motivations, their tricks for leaping the hurdles of time and money, the role played by friends and family, and the importance of writing it all down.

When he set out to visit all of the planet’s countries by age thirty-five, compulsive goal seeker Chris Guillebeau never imagined that his journey’s biggest revelation would be how many people like himself exist – each pursuing a challenging quest. And, interestingly, these quests aren’t just travel-oriented. On the contrary, they’re as diverse as humanity itself. Some involve exploration; others the pursuit of athletic or artistic excellence; still others a battle against injustice or poverty or threats to the environment.

Everywhere that Chris visited he found ordinary people working toward extraordinary goals, making daily down payments on their dream. These “questers” included a suburban mom pursuing a wildly ambitious culinary project, a DJ producing the world’s largest symphony, a young widower completing the tasks his wife would never accomplish, and a teenager crossing an entire ocean alone – as well as a do-it-yourselfer tackling M.I.T.’s computer-science course, a nerd turning himself into real-life James Bond, and scores of others writing themselves into the record books.

The more Chris spoke with these strivers, the more he began to appreciate the direct link between questing and long-term happiness — how going after something in a methodical way enriches our lives — and he was compelled to complete a comprehensive study of the phenomenon and extract the best advice. In The Happiness of Pursuit he draws on interviews with hundreds of questers, revealing their secret motivations, their selection criteria, the role played by friends and family, their tricks for solving logistics, and the importance of documentation.

Equally fascinating is Chris’ examination of questing’s other side, including questers’ acute awareness of mortality, their struggle against monotony, and their wistful feelings once a quest has succeeded. What happens after the summit is climbed, the painting hung, the endurance record broken, the “at risk” community saved?

A book that challenges each of us to take control – to make our lives be about something while at the same time remaining clear-eyed about the commitment — The Happiness of Pursuit will inspire readers of every age and aspiration. It’s a playbook for making your life count.

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