Experimenting with Happiness

“In October 1999 I began a ninety-day experiment in joy,” writes Mike Mason in a book I picked up at the library this week.

“Because this was an experiment there was room for failure. If there were times when I wasn’t joyful, I wouldn’t despair and beat myself up. Rather I would gently, persistently return as best I could to my focus on joy. So began (and continues to this day) the happiest time of my life.”

Mason waited several years before writing a book about this experience, feeling he had to see if the experiment “took.” After all, in the world we live in - with so many reasons, many of them good reasons, for unhappiness - any attempt to be a happy person may seem wildly inappropriate; a denial of reality. And indeed, without the backdrop of struggle and pain joy makes less sense.

The author is not one of those perky Christians who just sees good in everything; no Pollyanna. I liked what he writes about Christmas day, one of his “bad” days (mostly because he was too anxious that it not be).

Yet, as he says,

“My original thesis turned out to be true: Joy is like a muscle, and the more you exercise it, the stronger it grows.

"I’ve learned this the hard way because I haven’t been a happy person by nature. Some people are, but I’m a bundle of nerves who has lived most of his life in a state of anxious borderline depression. I didn’t realize what was going on until my late twenties, when I finally crashed big-time and ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. Later, when I’d been a Christian for ten years, I dropped into an even deeper depression.

“…When the first seven days of my experiment in joy had passed and I was still joyful, I felt a miracle had taken place. Before this, a solid week of happiness – or even three days in a row – would have been unthinkable for me. Now, three years later, just as I’ve learned to be sober, I’ve learned to live in joy, and I believe the same is possible for any ordinary person.” (pp. 1-2)

Champagne for the Soul is an honest portrayal of one man’s journey to shake off gloominess and what he learned about how joy works, by actively pursuing it. Ninety short essays. I look forward to savoring them over the next few weeks.