The Happiness Project: The happiness of little things, or, why I’ll never give up coffee.

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.”

Last week, an acquaintance explained to me at some length how he’d managed to give up coffee. I’m a deeply committed coffee-drinker, so I must confess I wasn’t very interested hearing his tactics.

But what did interest me was the fact that he didn’t have any particular reason to give up coffee. No, it didn’t make him jittery, and it didn’t hurt his stomach, and as long as he stopped drinking it after dinner, it didn’t mess with his sleep.

“So why give it up?” I asked.

He didn’t really have a good explanation. I got the impression that he felt that he just ought to give it up, because he enjoyed it too much; there had to be something “wrong” or addictive or unhealthy about liking his morning coffee to such a degree.

Some people give up coffee for health reasons. True, coffee does have some bad health effects. But it also has some good health effects. So it’s hard to know exactly how that cuts. And the increased alertness that coffee brings! Can’t underestimate the importance of that.

And from a happiness perspective, the tiny joys that we can experience every day are extraordinarily important. Samuel Johnson wrote, “It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery, and as much happiness as possible.” The small but real gratification of daily coffee helps build our happiness.

Samuel Johnson also said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.” I think that’s true of child-rearing, or workplace rules, or coffee-drinking. Why be so severe with yourself, to no obvious purpose? It’s important to keep a little cushion of small pleasures as part of daily life.

(Given the topic, it’s very appropriate that I’ve twice quoted Johnson; he was a compulsive tea-drinker.)

Of course, I’m justifying my own habits of drinking as much coffee—and tea and Diet Coke—as I can get my hands on every day. Until 7:00 p.m.

Now I know some people will say, “I gave up coffee, and it was tough, but now I feel much better.” I’m skeptical. Do they really feel better, or do they tell themselves they feel better, to justify having given up the coffee? But I suppose from a happiness-project perspective, it doesn’t matter how they “really” feel—if they think they feel better, they do feel better.

But as for me, drinking coffee makes me happy.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

Posted by: |

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Your comment could not be posted. Error type:

Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.