Happier

At the start of 2013, a few friends posted about happiness jars. Happy moments are collected throughout the year in a jar and at the end of the year, it is opened up and you remember all the nice things that happened.

I thought it was a pretty good idea so I put a jar by my desk and started filling it with happy little notes.

I was pretty good about adding to the jar until May, when my friend Jen let me know about an even better idea for collecting happy moments: an App called Happier (now available on the web too). Happier is a similar concept to the happy jar, except it also involves a social network. Not only are you thinking about and collecting your own happy moments, but you get to look through other people's happy moments too. This is one of the best features of Happier, as it often makes me happier to read about the day to day things that make others smile. Things like "I got 8 hours of sleep!" or "The sun was out all day" are just really nice to read about.

The app has expanded a lot since I joined in May, and each new version is better than the last. In the current version when you post three happy moments in a day, you're rewarded with an image that says "You're Awesome". There is also confetti that rains down on the screen after you post a happy moment, which is both fun and encouraging. They even celebrate user milestones, as I recently reached my 200th moment and was rewarded with this appearing on my screen:

On the social side, you can "smile" at moments, comment on moments, share them, follow other people's moments, and search for happy moments by category. For example: "eating awesome food" and "animals" are both categories to browse. Scrolling through these categories, you'll find hundreds of posts of people just loving on their pets or being overjoyed by the food they've just eaten. It's really a lot of fun.

If you want to check out the happy moments I've posted, you can find them by clicking here.

Thinking about the little things and being part of the Happier community has been a very positive addition to my year. If I'm having a bad day, Happier is a great place to go to be reminded of all the little things that make life fun. And refreshingly, for a social network, it is a very positive space to be. Most of the comments I get on my moments are variations of "Me too!" or "I love that!" or "I should do that too!" Obviously not everyone is made happy by the same things, but if you see something that doesn't appeal to you, you can just scroll past it and find twenty other moments that will make you smile.

Hundreds of little things made me happier in 2013, and I'm looking forward to going over my Happier posts and reading through my happiness jar so I can remember all the moments that made me smile.