For the weekly videos, I now tell a story. I’ve realized that for me, and I think for many people, a story is what holds my attention and makes a point most powerfully.

This week’s story: Be polite, and be fair.

 

Can’t see the video? Click here.

I love short mantras that cover a lot of situations. Do you have a mantra or catchphrase that helps you remember how you want to behave? My favorite personal mantra is Be Gretchen. (Other people should substitute their own names, of course.)

Find the archives of videos here.  More than 1.5 MILLION views. Don’t forget to subscribe!

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Further Secrets of Adulthood:

 

I’m surprised by how true this Secret of Adulthood proves to be.

Research shows that when people move faster, their metabolism speeds up. Also, because the way we act influences the way we feel (to an almost uncanny degree), acting with energy will make you feel more energetic. Standing up while talking on the phone, walking more quickly, speaking with more animation.

In fact, I’ve found that a slightly goofy–but highly effective–way to boost my energy is to jump up and down a few times. I do jumping-jacks by my desk, I run down the stairs, I hop over puddles. It takes energy, but it gives energy.

Have you found this to be true?

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Essential Oils — are wrung –

The Attar from the Rose

Be not expressed by Suns — alone –

It is the gift of Screws –

 

The General Rose — decay

But this — in Lady’s Drawer

Make Summer — When the Lady lie

In Ceaseless Rosemary –

– Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

Yesterday was the last day of school for my two daughters. They wore special outfits, I took pictures, lots of excitement.

The last day of school is always bittersweet to me; it’s fun to head into the summer, but it’s always a little sad that another year is over. I’m always reminded that “The days are long, but the years are short.”  (The one-minute video I made about this feeling is probably the thing, of everything I’ve ever written, that resonates most with people.)

The end of the school year is also significant to me because I still measure my own life by the school calendar. September is the other January–which is why, for my second happiness project in Happier at Home, I did a project from September through May.  September is a new beginning, and the June/July/August season feels separate from the rest of the year.

So now that school is over, my summer has started–but fact is, my summer is a lot like the rest of my year. We go on some family trips, and my daughters’ schedules are different, but my work and routine, and my husband’s work and routine, don’t change much.

But I want the feeling of summer in my life, and so I’ve made a resolution: every weekend, I’m going to read a book for pleasure. Pure pleasure! I read a lot, all the time, but often I read books for research, or because they’re interesting to me in some way, even if they aren’t exactly “pleasurable.” But on summer weekends, I’m going to read only what I LOVE. Books that I can’t put down, books that I’ll race through in a few days. And if I don’t love a book, I’m going to stop reading it (another new resolution for me).

In The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies, Davies wrote, “Every man makes his own summer. The season has no character of its own, unless one is a farmer with a professional concern for the weather. Circumstances have not allowed me to make a good summer for myself this year…My summer has been overcast by my own heaviness of spirit. I have not had any adventures, and adventures are what make a summer.”

Reading is my adventure, it’s my cubicle and my playground–and this summer, I’m going to make sure to spend a lot of time on the playground side.

How about you? How do you plan to “make your own summer”?

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Happiness interview: Lea Carpenter.

I met Lea Carpenter many years ago, because we were both involved in the New York Public Library (one of my favorite New York City institutions). She’s always been an ardent lover of libraries, literature, and books of all sorts–so I was thrilled when I heard that she was writing her first novel.

I’m so happy for her, because her debut novel, Eleven Days, is just about to hit the shelves, and just today got a great review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times. Who called her “an extraordinarily gifted writer.” Zoikes!

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?

Lea: Exercise. Scrambling the perfect egg.

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?

It comes from within. And it is fleeting, by design.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?

Yes.

 Is there a happiness quotation that has struck you as particularly insightful?

“J’ai decide d’etre heureux parce que c’est bon pour la santé.” It’s Voltaire; I trust him. [I decided to be happy because it's good for my health.]

If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost? Or, like a “comfort food,” do you have a comfort activity? (mine is reading children’s books).

Reading. Swimming, if that’s an option.

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness? 

Texting must detract. I lack evidence, but it must. It’s so rife with ambiguity.

Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy – if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?

I agree with the experts that we each possess “set points,” but that theory needs something like what bankers call a MAC clause. Because certain events sure shift you from center. A wedding, for example. A loss.

Is there some aspect of your home that makes you particularly happy?

Bed, of course. Bed with books, children, dogs.

Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t – or vice versa?

I don’t expect happiness. I do think becoming a mother exceeds everyone’s expectations, emotionally. Parenting is one place where emotion isn’t circumscribed, or conditional. IMHO, as they say.