The Happiness Project: In which I buy paper-white narcissus flowers and stop to smell the gingerbread.

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.”

One of my resolutions is to “appreciate the season and the time of life,” that is, revel in the special qualities of each time of year and each stage of life.

One thing I remember vividly from my childhood is my mother’s custom of having some seasonal ornamentation in the house. Forsythia or cherry blossoms in the spring, squash arrangements in the fall, paper-white narcissus flowers and evergreens for Christmas—not to mention her enormous, splendid collection of Christmas decorations.

I loved all this when I was growing up, but I find it hard to imitate. First, I’m cheap. Second, I hate to shop. Third, I’m not good at making arrangements.

But yesterday I forced myself to stop to buy some paper-whites, and I’m so happy I did. Our apartment seems so much more holidayish now, with that distinctive scent in the rooms. And although I’d been procrastinating for two weeks, when I finally decided to make the purchase, I just went to the flower shop on the corner of my street, picked up a box of paper-whites, paid, and left. It was laughably quick.

And appreciating the season also means taking time to enjoy its particular pleasures. Today, as I was walking by Eli’s on 80th and 3rd, I saw that they’d filled a huge display window with a scene made entirely of gingerbread. It was charming. My impulse was to hurry right by, but I made myself stop for a moment to enjoy it. In a few weeks, it will be gone, and this is the kind of thing that makes the holiday season fun.

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Via the terrific site Lifehack, I just discovered a great blog, The Positivity Blog. I'm looking forward to poking around, looks like there's a lot of terrific material there.

Comments

Gretchen, I never grew up with paperwhites in the house at Christmas, but I do adore them. They have such an amazing fragrance and our sense of smell is the one most closely connected to our memory. Speaking of memories and smell, I made pizzelles the other night and my entire house smelled of anise just like my grandmother's house used to every Christmas season when I was a little girl. Ahhhhh...

Posted by: Monica Ricci | December 08, 2006 at 12:03 AM

What a very lovely blog. My new resolution is to check in with your blog twice a week. Maybe I will wind up a little happier here in Marrakesh.

Posted by: Maryam in Marrakesh | December 16, 2006 at 07:53 AM

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