Dustin M. Wax

A few weeks ago, Alex Shalman, one of the guest contributors at lifehack.org, asked me to contribute to his “Happiness Project”, a set of interviews with prominent bloggers about their definitions of happiness and what they’re doing to increase happiness in their lives.

My responses were posted today (along with fellow lifehackista Leon Ho’s), putting me in some pretty good company: Liz Strauss, Darren Rowse, John Chow, Leo Babauta, and Steve Pavlina, among others, have all participated. (You can read the full list of participants so far at the Happiness Project main page.)

Alex is also running a contest, offering among other things a $200 donation to the charity of their choice for the interviewee whose interview has the most original comments at the end of the project. There are also prizes for other participants, like the top commenters, so go check it out and start commenting! (The first week’s bloggers have a 2-week headstart on me, so it’s unlikely I’ll win without a lot of help! Unlikely as it is, I’ll pledge the prize, if I win, to Doctors Without Borders. As Alex says, he didn’t tell us there was any sort of contest involved when we participated, so it’s just icing on the cake.)

If you don’t already know Alex Shalman’s work, take some time to check out the rest of his blog, too. Alex is pretty driven, and his drive is contagious. I talked with him a few weeks ago (before he sent me the interview), and he has a way of taking for granted as “done” things that the rest of us see as challenges. Which is to say, he spotlights the excuses we use to put things off and just assumes we’ll get past them. I don’t think he does it consciously, it’s just part of the conversation for him. At his site, where he really is trying to push his readers past their own excuses, he can be very powerful, indeed.

Check it out, and give a little thought to your own answers. What makes you happy? What have you done lately to make yourself happier?