How Many Things Make You Happy?

What makes you happy?  How many things are you happy about?  Barbara Ann Kipfer knows exactly how many things she is happy about: 14,000 (and growing)!  She knows, because throughout her the first forty years of her life, she wrote them down and kept track of everything, big and small, that made her happy.

Barbara Ann Kipfer is from Connecticut and holds a PhD in Linguistics, a PhD in Archaeology, a PhD in Buddhist Studies and in Physical Education.  With all her accomplishments and successes, the thing Dr. Kipfer is most proud of is her book “14,000 Things To Be Happy About”.   The book, and now her website, was created from a small spiral notebook she started writing in during her sixth grade.  In her little notebook, she made a list of things that made her happy.  As her list grew, she replaced the notebook with larger notebooks and finally graduated to a computer.  She kept adding to her list for twenty years!  Her list grew to 14,000 happy things.  \

This list was published into a book.  It has sold over a million copies and has been the topic of many page-a-day calendars.  The entire book is made up of her lists – page after page of things that made Barbara Ann Kipfer happy through her childhood, her teen-age years and eventually adulthood. 

Barbara Ann Kipfer intrigues me.  What would give a six-grade student the idea to keep such a list?  Why would she keep her adding to her list, keeping all her old books through her childhood and as an adult?  What an interesting concept: keeping a list of things that make you happy!  I wonder if the twelve-year-old child who started keeping a record of her happy things ever thought in her wildest dreams that her lists would one day be a best-selling book?  She is obviously an intelligent woman and is very well educated, yet she believes that being happy is the most important thing you can do for yourself.  She lives her life acknowledging the things which please her.  In fact, she continues to this day – 45 years after she began her first book of lists – to keep a notebook of things to be happy about.  Her list has grown to more than 132,000 things!

Interestingly, the author says that she now uses her own list to cheer herself up on a "gray day" or when she wants to plan a fun thing with her son. Barbara Ann Kipfer has been quoted as saying:  "Happiness comes from noticing and enjoying the little things in life".    I think she is right.  If we dwell on the dark things in our lives, we will not find happiness or contentment.  If we think about things that cheer us up and delight us, life is much more pleasant.  What would you include on your list of things that make you happy?  Reminding ourselves of the things that make us happy . . . it’s a good thing!