New Thing Update and the Key to Happiness

Since I started my New Thing Campaign in fall 2009, I've felt generally happier. Of course, that sense of contentment built over time, but there has been something mildly transformative about putting myself to the challenge of tackling at least one new thing a month. The truth is that most months, I've done one intentional new thing a week, but who's counting? These new activities force me to make active choices about what I'd like to do, and they put me just a little bit out of my comfort zone--just enough to be interesting. The result is a happier Sue. That's my theory, at least.

But the positive impact of new things on happiness isn't just my crackpot theory. Thanks to my distinguished colleague, Robin, I have a little science to prove it. In a 2010 article in The Journal of Social Psychology, Kathryn E. Buchanan and Anat Bardi reported the findings of an experiment related to happiness and contentment. Participants between the ages of 18 to 60 took part in the experiment designed to determine the effects of acts of kindness and acts of novelty on life satisfaction. At random, they were asked to complete either kind acts, new acts, or neither on a daily basis for ten days. The conclusion? I think the authors say it best: "the current experiment indicates that kind and new acts, performed daily over as little as ten days, can increase life satisfaction. Furthermore, the results highlight novelty as an integral feature of happiness-enhancing interventions.". See? The New Thing Campaign really is the key to happiness. I'm thinking that the true path to happiness might be volunteering at a new social service agency every month, thereby combining the new thing with a kind act. Hmmm.

I've certainly reported on dozens of new things I've done since arriving in China, so I won't repeat them here. My time here in Xi'an is more than half over, but I still have things to explore. I want to get to the much acclaimed World Horticulture Expo, for instance, and I'm told that there are some lovely parks I need to see before I head off. I'm starting to get very excited about the arrival of my friends, though. We'll meet in Beijing on May 13th, and I can't wait. Just think, in two weeks, I'll be hiking along The Great Wall with two of my favorite people in the world. Wow. Now that's life satisfaction!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad