The Happiness Project: If you’re in the mood to read self-help books…

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.”

On the last day of each month, I include a list of happiness-related suggested reading, but for some reason I was under the impression that November has 31 days. Oops. So I'm a day late.

I have a real love of self-help books. I used to be embarrassed to admit that, but hey, “Be Gretchen." Here are some of my favorites -- it's a fairly idiosyncratic assortment.

Clutter and time management:
Julie Morgenstern, Organizing from the Inside Out
Cheryl Richardson, Take Time for Your Life

Spirituality:
St. Therese of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul
Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

Work and leisure:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Winston Churchill, Painting as Pastime

Writing:
David Lodge, The Art of Fiction.
Robert Boice, How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency
Chris Baty, No Plot, No Problem!
William Zinsser, On Writing Well

Marriage:
John Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Parenting:
Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk

Friends:
Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
Ann Demaris and Valerie White, First Impressions

Health:
Barbara Rolls and Robert Barnett, The Volumetrics Weight Control Plan
Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating

Comments

Just finished reading Happiness: a guide to developing life's most important skill, by Mattieu Ricard.

Excellent, insightful read on your most interesting topic.

Have you read? Your ideas on it?

Posted by: Chad | March 09, 2007 at 09:31 PM

I was delighted to see Dale Carnegie's classic book on your list! I'd like to recommend another one by the same author: "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living." Worry is the source of much unhappiness and this book does a great job of both showing how useless it is to worry as well as offering some methods to "overcome the worry habit."

I still hold out hope that someday I will implement them!

Posted by: Cynthia Friedlob | April 16, 2007 at 02:38 AM

Hi Gretchen!

I have you bookmarked as "Happy Gretchen" on my website and check your blog daily. This is the first time I have commented because I have to know if you have read Dan Baker's book, "What Happy Women Know." I really enjoyed it and would love to know if you have read it and what your impression was of it.

Posted by: Brooke Castillo | July 18, 2007 at 05:34 PM

Read 'Do It Tomorrow' by Mark Forster.ISBN 978-0340-909126. Absolutely fantastic and practical book on time management. Available through Amazon.

Posted by: John Young | August 12, 2008 at 04:39 PM

Hi there,

Thanks for this wonderful resource! I'm surprised to find that Stephen Covey's books didn't make the list. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and the 8th Habits are both classics which I've found truly helpful. Not to mention "Everyday Greatness".

Happy reading :)

Posted by: Olle Lindholm | February 12, 2012 at 12:34 AM

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