Klaus Solko, co-executive editor 

Augsburg Exploration Day was Oct. 21, meaning that afternoon classes were canceled making it much easier for students to participate in activities. Outside of great opportunities such as visiting the Assistant Director of Campus Life Tess Munshower to learn more about Campus Life Job Opportunities or going to the “face to face” theater info meeting; what I want to highlight was the opportunity to go to the Happiness Gym. 

The Happiness Gym was a community building experience facilitated by Mixed Blood Theater and hosted by Augsburg’s Center for Wellness and Counseling (CWC). The goal of the event is to better center happiness and in everyday life. 

The story given at the beginning of the event was that Ken Weitzman, the creator of the show,  was trying really hard to be happy. He started putting all these things into his life and calendar and to-do lists for things that would help make him happy. But he couldn’t keep up with it. This is something a lot of people do, they try to change their whole lives and then can’t keep up and end up feeling worse for it. This is why the happiness gym is focused on learning and building skills that can be slowly implemented into life or just increase the moment. 

The first exercise done at the gym was reading a positive news article and then summarizing it for people in your group. This was said to not only improve your mood because you got to read a good news story but you also got to share that good news with others creating a boomerang effect. 

The next activity was stretching our gratitude muscles. There were questions posted around the room for participants to answer. Some of the questions were, “within the last month what is something someone has said to you that you were grateful for?” and “what is a positive change you are grateful for in your life recently?”

Following this practice of gratitude we did one more. “Gym goers” found an area in the chapel that was “to themselves.” After everyone had an area they were told to write a letter to someone who they were grateful for but that they hadn’t expressed that to. We were then all asked to read our letters out loud together. The hosts said that reading our words of gratitude helped us process them in another way and feel more fulfilled by them. 

The next exercise really tested my resolve and diaphragm as it was to laugh for 60 seconds straight. This was following the knowledge that your brain can not differentiate between smiling or laughing for real or pretend. This was by far the most difficult for me as it turns out I am not good at fake laughing, however being in a room with 15 other people who were also finding this practice rather silly definitely helped. 

The last activity we did was by far a participant favorite. We paired off and got packets of questions to ask to our partners and also answer back and forth. These questions spanned from “Would you like to be famous and in what way? If no, why not?” to “What is one thing you would change about how you were raised?” My only complaint about this activity was that we didn’t have more time to do it as I was having a great time with the questions and it seemed like the rest of the room was too. 

Overall the Happiness Gym was a really fun experience that I hope comes back to Augsburg. I would highly recommend it if you get the chance. Why not have an hour and a half of dedicated happiness?