Book notes from Paths to Happiness — 50 ways to add joy to your life every day

What’s happiness to you? How do you define happiness?

The definition that I like is one I heard from a podcast somewhere but I can’t recall who it was from (if you know, please let me know in the comments) and it is really about having consecutive good days. For example, if you got fired from work one day, then got a flat tire the next day and then your boyfriend broke up with you the next day, you would say that you’ve had a pretty bad day (or even week). Yet, in another scenario, say you got a raise at work, you won the lottery and then your boyfriend proposed to you after. Then you would say that you’ve had a pretty good day (or even week). Happiness then is about having consecutive good days — the implication of which is that it can be completely in your control to make it a good or a bad day.

Edward Hoffman, the author of Paths to Happiness, identified 50 different ways to add joy to your life every day and here are the things that I took away from his book that I’ll slowly incorporate into my life in different ways:

Cooking

One of my favourite things to do is to browse through cookbooks of different cuisines and to get ideas and inspiration on some things to cook. Every recipe is a project in itself — there’s the ingredients…