She was supposed to have a flourishing career. She was supposed to be married with children. She was supposed to have a life outside her tiny little office and her tiny little apartment.

Isadora has none of those things, and she’s fairly certain she never will.

As an academic researcher, she’s analyzed the data, and concluded that the probability of ever finding happiness is next to zero. After all, connecting with other people is the likeliest way to lead a happy life, and in her thirty years on this earth, she’s never managed to master that.

But then, as she shops for a solo birthday celebration meal (a smorgasbord of junk food), a headline on a magazine catches her eye: “Thirty-one Ways to be Happy (Today!)” Of course, Isadora knows better than to trust articles that aren’t rooted in facts, but she can’t help but wonder what it says. Against her better judgment, she buys it, and then she has an idea.

She’ll give this happiness thing one last-ditch effort by implementing all thirty-one steps of the article. One a day for a whole month. At least then, nobody can say she didn’t try. She’ll record the data and disprove the author of the article.

But as Isadora begins her experiment, strange things happen. Feelings. Emotions. Connections. And when she finds herself a key player in another person’s life, she begins to question whether or not her hypothesis was correct.

And she wonders if maybe she could actually find the happy life she’s been searching for.