The Happiness Project: Still plugging away at podcasting.

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.”

Still plugging away at podcasting.

One popular piece of how-to-be-happy advice is "Learn to do something new."

This is a good example of the fact that happiness doesn't always make you feel happy; i.e., it can be tough to learn something new. But I'm plugging away.

This is a test, so just ignore anything you see.

Download test5.mp3

Download i_think_this_is_actually_working.mp3

Also, I don't know much about naming conventions for podcasts. What is the most convenient way for podcasts to be titled? should they include the date? I see how to edit the ID3 tags, but am not sure what is most convenient for the listener. Any suggestions would be gratefully received!

Posted November 28, 2006

Comments

It works! I listened to your sentence. It's all downhill from here. Thanks for using MP3, a format that works on a wide variety of platforms.

In the last month, I've taken a class at a machine shop and am learning to use the lathe. It's been difficult enough that I've been talking out loud to myself, which I hope is a sign that little-used parts of my brain are growing. However, I did finish the first project I wanted to make, which shows that it can be done. My project is about equivalent to your first sentence, but it's a start.

Grow or die: the only two choices.

Posted by: Alison Chaiken | November 28, 2006 at 11:21 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.