The Happiness Project: A very interesting website, 43 Things.

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT is the memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier – happily, it was a #1 New York Times bestseller. As one of the hundreds of experiments I've conducted, I started this blog. Here, I recount my daily adventures in pursuit of happiness. –

Gretchen Rubin

Twelve Personal Commandments

Four Splendid Truths

First: To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
Second: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
Third: The days are long, but the years are short. (click the link to see my one-minute movie)
Fourth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.

30-Second
TV Commercial

What Started Me Thinking

"The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

A very interesting website, 43 Things.

I came across an interesting site today, 43 Things.

To reach a goal, it’s very effective to commit yourself in writing. So the 43 Things site invites you to type your answer to the question, “What do you want to do with your life?”

The site also displays people’s answers, in engaging ways. Goals listed range from “type with 10 fingers without looking down at the keyboard” to “read everything Vladimir Nabokov has ever written” to “go on a bbq and blues pilgrimage” to “travel more.” It’s surprisingly fascinating to read through it.

In March, as part of Work and Leisure month, I tried the make-a-list principle myself, and wrote a list of nine career goals on an index card and taped it next to my computer. They’re pretty ambitious, and I haven’t reached any of them yet—but we’ll see. It’s only been three weeks.

Posted April 25, 2006

Comments

i'm a long time 43 things user and it has definitely helped me improve the quality of my focus and the level to which i'm able to prioritize my Mondo Beyondo life goals list. I simply love this piece of social software.

Posted by: funchilde | August 28, 2006 at 03:24 PM

quote:
A variant: "100 things to do before I die" lists. If you haven't done 99 of them, you realize you'd best get cracking!

Posted by: Julie Hilden
/quote
Lol. I totally agree, but for me...it's enough also just 50 things...or less :(

Posted by: Mark Gallo | July 14, 2007 at 01:47 AM

very intersting and useful

Posted by: rumi | October 17, 2007 at 10:56 AM

I think it is less probably to get finally at a general happiness recipe, that will satisfy everybody. Most of the case, when commandments are reborn inside us, the peace of mind, freedom of choice and true happiness are very close.

Posted by: mihk | January 06, 2008 at 05:42 PM

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Gretchen Rubin is the best-selling writer whose book, The Happiness Project, is the account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. Here, she shares her insights to help you create your own happiness project.