The Pursuit Of Happiness

I've been thinking about happiness a lot lately - its presence, its absence and how best to achieve it.

When I first started writing this blog three years ago, I was quite literally on a journey of self-discovery. I had taken the trip of a lifetime and returned home with a dream of reinventing myself and taking my life in an entirely different direction.

And I succeeded initially. I got a job writing for a newspaper. I sold a house that no longer fit the life I wanted to live and bought a condo more fitting to the future I imagined for myself. I ended a relationship that was no longer fulfilling for either me or my boyfriend.

So what reason could there possibly be for unhappiness?

Let's just call it a reversal of fortune. The paper I worked for closed. With money tighter than ever, my new home started to become more a financial burden and less the oasis I had envisioned. And while being alone may be better than being in a relationship that's going nowhere, it too has its drawbacks.

Like many people I know, I sometimes struggle with depression. Everyone has their own way of coping with the dark days. For me, finding tangible ways to make myself happier seems to be the best medicine. Sometimes, it's reaching out to friends for a kind word or a get-together. Others, it's just getting out of my apartment and doing something either useful or distracting. Today, I have decided that writing - not for work, but for myself - is another way that I can make myself happier.

I'm inspired by Gretchen Rubin, whose website "The Happiness Project" is now set as my browser's homepage. If you haven't already visited her site, I encourage you to check it out. I know that I will be referencing her frequently as I create my own happiness project through this blog.

My friend, Andrew, is also on the happiness bandwagon. His latest endeavor - happier.com - is a web portal bringing together the latest research and tools to help people set and achieve goals that will bring them satisfaction and happiness.

Over the past few years, I've had many friends who asked when I would start blogging again. Today is that day. I initially thought of "Dispatches from the Road Less Traveled" as merely a travelogue, of sorts. It ended when my European adventure did. I've recently come to believe, however, that my road less traveled consists not only of geographic wanderings, but also of the interior journeys and discoveries I experience every day.

I hope that you will be my traveling companion along the road. So to kick off the expedition, I'd like to have your response to the following question: What one thing do you do when you are feeling down to make yourself feel better?