The Happiness Project

This Saturday: a quote from George Orwell.

“But what is work and what is not work? Is it work to dig, to carpenter, to plant trees, to fell trees, to ride, to fish, to hunt, to feed chickens, to play the piano, to take photographs, to build a house, to cook, to sew, to trim hats, to mend motor bicycles? All of these things are work to somebody, and all of them are play to somebody. There are in fact very few activities which cannot be classed either as work or play according as you choose to regard them.”
--George Orwell
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This passage is from one of my favorite of George Orwell's works, The Road to Wigan Pier.

One last tip about making a good impression.

I realized I forgot an important item on my tip list for April 19, tips for making a good first impression.

The final tip: When you’re meeting someone for the first time, don’t throw a fit if something goes wrong. People give more weight to early information than to later information, so if you strike them as irritable or difficult, you’ll find it hard to overcome that impression.

You might think that by acting demanding, you show your high standards, or your sophistication, or your concern about your companions’ well-being. But, to the contrary, most people will be put off if you complain about the food at a restaurant or yell at the guy behind the ticket counter.

So if you’re late, apologize and let it go; don’t keep harping on the idiocy of other drivers. If a report has a mistake, acknowledge it and move on; don’t rage about people’s carelessness.

You’ll make a better impression with self-assurance and resiliency than you will with anger or dissatisfaction.

Years later, I still remember a meeting where a guy I had just met stepped outside the room to scream at a paralegal over the phone. He was never anything but perfectly pleasant to me, but I always avoided him after that. That might have been unfair; he might have had a good reason to be angry, and it might have been the one time he acted that way. But I never got over my first impression.

Some thoughts about the passage of time, or, how to get more out of life.

I just finished The Magic Mountain, where Thomas Mann points out that most of us think that when we’re bored, time passes slowly, and when we’re interested, time passes quickly.

He argues that that’s only partially correct. True, hours pass slowly when we’re bored—but years speed by in a flash, because the time holds nothing. By contrast, while hours fly when we’re interested and engaged, eventful years hold so much experience that they seem to last a long time.

I think that’s true. I clerked for Justice O’Connor for only one year, and although those twelve months passed quickly, I feel like the experience lasted much, much longer. A friend made the same observation about the birth of his first child: before she was born, he felt like time was passing quickly, but it slowed to a crawl during the first three months of her life. So much was new.

So—how to take advantage of this observation, without taking a new job or moving to Mombai? I crave routine and predictability, but my happiness research is making me think I need to break out of my gerbil-cage existence, even though that’s what I like.

This Wednesday: Tips...to find good books.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Tips...to find good books.

If you’re a serious reader, how do you find recommendations beyond reviews of what’s just been published?

1. My friend Jesse Kornbluth runs a fantastic site, Head Butler, crammed with recommendations for books, music, movies, and products. The site has steered me to a lot of great reading, like Maupassant’s Bel-Ami and Maugham’s Cakes and Ale.

2. Persephone Books reprints forgotten classics of the 20th century (mostly novels), and their list is dependably terrific. The lengthy book descriptions on their website are a big help if you feel like reading a certain kind of book—about the lives of three cousins, say, or about a village during World War II. The books are beautiful, too—dove-grey with gorgeous endpapers and matching bookmark.

3. I love the magazine The Week, especially the weekly “The Book List,” where a different author recommends six books. The Week also provides an “Also of interest…” round-up each week: “great works in new packages” or “books about baseball.”

4. Slightly Foxed is a wonderful British quarterly about books that have survived the test of time. (“Slightly foxed” describes a volume discolored by age.) Each issue is a collection of very short, charming essays by writers on their favorite books. I always end up with a good list—that’s how I discovered Angela Thirkell. (A Slightly Foxed subscription also makes a great gift for bookish friends.)

5. Keep a running list of books you want to read, and be sure to include a note on why you want to read them, because you will surely forget.

6. Push people for recommendations, and add the suggestions to your running list. This is particularly helpful if you want to venture past your usual fare.

7. Nabokov, I think, said that “All good reading is re-reading.” For the last few years, I’ve been re-reading the classics that I read when I was too young to appreciate them properly, like War and Peace, Moby Dick, and Great Expectations. And you know what? They’re GREAT. War and Peace is as addictive as Stephen King’s The Stand (a book I stayed home from work to finish).

8. I’ve never had good luck with the lists people post on Amazon, but the reader reviews of individual books are often useful.

Remember: whether you’re going on vacation, to the dentist, or on the subway, always take more reading material than you expect to finish.

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.

How to make a boring situation interesting.

This afternoon, I was on Security Patrol at the Big Girl’s school. For thirty minutes, dressed in a bright orange poncho and clutching a walkie-talkie, I stood alone as I monitored a single, busy corner.

I expected to be bored out of my mind, but that corner became surprisingly interesting.

I remember reading a Zen principle that if something is boring for two minutes, do it for four minutes. If it’s still boring, then eight minutes, then sixteen, and so on. And eventually you discover that it’s not boring at all.

I’ve noticed that with writing. If part of my research isn’t interesting to me, I read a whole book about it—like the

Bay of Pigs

incident for Forty Ways to Look at JFK--and then it becomes absorbing. The same principle helps when doing boring chores, like washing dishes.

You pass through boredom into fascination.

This Saturday: a quote from Elias Canetti

“In the best times of my life I always think I am making room, even more room in me.  Here I shovel away snow, there I raise aloft a piece of fallen sky; there are superfluous lakes, I let them run out (I save the fish) overgrown forests, I drive crowds of apes into them, everything is astir, but there’s never enough room, I never ask why, I never feel why, I just have to keep making room, on and on, and as long as I can do so, I merit my life.”

-- Elias Canetti

I've been getting more sleep.

My new, not-exactly-original resolution is to go to sleep when I feel sleepy, instead of staying up to read, work, watch The Sopranos on TiVO, pay bills, whatever.

Before I learned the counter-intuitive—but true—rule that well-rested children sleep better than sleep-deprived children, I’d made critical errors like thinking that if my children stayed up late, they’d sleep later in the morning. Nope. They wake up earlier. Sleep begets sleep.

And this rule is true for adults, too. Now that I get more sleep, I sleep better but I also need more sleep. That’s healthy, sure, but I miss having that time awake.

But maybe my new sleepiness isn’t linked to getting more sleep, but just the level of sleep-deprivation we all suffer. I’ve heard that “sleep is the new sex,” and I was at a dinner party where everyone literally went around the table detailing the best nap they’d ever had.

I'm sending emails asking friends for their birthdays.

Each month of the Happiness Project has a special focus, and April’s focus is FRIENDS.

So I’m sending emails asking friends for their birth dates. I’ve never been good at remembering friends’ birthdays—or to be more accurate, I never remember any friend’s birthday (except the friend whose birthday falls the day after mine).

Once I get my list filled in, I’m going to try using an internet site to send me prompts, or if that doesn’t work, pencil the dates in my trusty filofax.

But I’ve already benefited. Gathering those dates obliged me to email a lot of people I hadn’t been in touch with for a while, and I got nice responses back from many of them.

Sending out “happy birthday” messages means I’ll connect with every friend at least once a year. That sounds so meager, but the fact is, it would be an improvement.

This Wednesday: Tips...to make a good first impression.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day. 

This Wednesday:  Tips...to make a good first impression.

n      smile and lean toward others as they talk

n      if standing, keep your body fully facing the people you’re speaking with

n      ask questions and follow up on people’s remarks; and in doing so, focus on opinions and feelings, not just facts

n      don’t interrupt

n      compliment others

n      try to find common experiences or interests

n      mention some vulnerabilities and laugh at yourself

n      draw others out and encourage people to join the conversation

n      put energy in your voice

n      at least at the start, focus on positive comments, not criticisms or complaints

n      offer a variety of topics

n      share observations about everyday life

n      share your passions and interests

n      don’t dwell on the minutiae of your life, especially annoyances

n      remember: people give more weight to their early information (were you engaged, warm, distracted, pompous?) than to later information, so be your most charming at the beginning of the conversation

n      remember: most people are more eager to be found interesting, funny, or insightful than to be interested, amused, or informed by you

For a fascinating, highly practical book on this topic, read Ann Demarais and Valerie White's First Impressions.