The Happiness Project: In the mood to see a movie about happiness? See Junebug.

The Happiness Project

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

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.”

Sunday night, the Big Man and I watched Junebug, and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s an extraordinary movie.

In law school, exams often take the form of “issue-spotters.” The professor presents a story of a few paragraphs, and you have to spot and analyze all the legal issues. They’re exhausting, but also sort of fun.

Well, for me, watching Junebug was a happiness-project issue-spotter. (Another happiness issue-spotter is Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday.)

Happiness questions abound in Junebug: who is happy, and who isn’t, and why; and who is or isn’t contributing to others’ happiness, and how; the role of understanding, forgiveness, forbearance, and blame; and who’s living up to the duty to be happy.

My description makes the movie sound sappy or preachy, but it really isn’t.

Simone Weil wrote, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

Junebug illustrates this truth. The son who probably thinks he’s nobly rebelling against the constraints of conventional family expectations is shown to be selfish and tiresome—and in the end, in a thrilling but absolutely ordinary scene, he manages to rise up. The daughter-in-law who comes off as a silly, lonely chatterbox slowly reveals her strength of character.

Each family member makes decisions that affect everyone’s happiness—not dramatic, Hollywood gestures, but the kinds of decisions that everyone makes, every day. How to react to a new family member. How often to visit your parents. How to comfort someone. Even how to behave when someone enters a room.

There are so many little moments I can’t forget: When the mother Peg says, “Don’t worry about Ashley. She’s a firecracker.” When the husband George cheerfully stands up to sing a solo of “Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling” at a church social. The very last moment of the movie, when George’s wife, Madeleine, reaches out to touch him.

I’m tempted to watch the movie again, tonight. Usually I wouldn’t consider doing that, because it would be a “waste” of time—and yet, one of my resolutions for this month is to “spend out,” to spend, trusting that there will be more. And that includes spending out my time, without worrying about being rigidly efficient. After all, I know that sometimes the things I do when I’m wasting time turn out to be enormously productive.

Aack. I just remembered, I’ve already sent the movie back to NetFlix. Too efficient!

happiness

Comments

Gretchen, a list of your favorite movies and books about happiness would be wonderful!

Posted by: Lucy | July 19, 2006 at 04:39 PM

Thanks so much for your interest! Last month, at a reader's suggestion, I started posting a list of recommended reading on the last day of the month. So see June 30 for a list of great novels about happiness. I'll do the same thing each month. I haven't made a list of good movies about happiness, but terrific idea, I'll start thinking about that. Junebug is a great start. Any other suggestions?

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | July 21, 2006 at 12:16 PM

some suggestions from a quick browse of my DVD shelf

The Station Agent - a beautiful film about friendship, its demands and satisfactions

Lost In Translation

The Wonder Boys

Secrets and Lies

American Beauty

Ratatouille

The Cooler

Posted by: Lalitavira | December 03, 2007 at 10:47 AM

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