The Happiness Project: My second podcast! On being a more light-hearted parent.

I’m working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, a memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy--from Aristotle to Martin Seligman to Thoreau to Oprah. On this daily blog, I recount my adventures as I grapple with the challenge of being happier. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will hit the shelves in December 2009 (Harper).

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.

What Started Me Thinking

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." 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.”

My second podcast! On being a more light-hearted parent.

This is podcast #2, about being a more light-hearted parent. I have to say that this is an area that I've been working on A LOT during this year, and it has really paid off. There's a lighter, happier atmosphere in our house, and I'm happier because I'm not acting like such a harridan (most of the time).

Some readers reported that the volume on my first podcast was so low that they couldn't hear it. I think I've figured out how to fix that, but let me know if it's still a problem.

Enjoy!

Download HP-02-061213.mp3

Posted December 13, 2006

Comments

Hi Gretchen,

I just discovered your blog and I can't wait to dive in and get to know you and more about your happiness project. I started blogging about 5 months ago about design and creative living and I have been fascinated to discover how much happier I am just by the process of blogging. I'm going to list you on my "morning coffee visits" because I think your blog will be so interesting and inspiring to my readers. I love this. k

Posted by: kstyle | December 13, 2006 at 08:19 PM

>I think I've figured out how to fix that, but let me know if it's still a problem.

I had a problem with the volume of the previous audio but the new mp3 file is fine.

Posted by: Alison Chaiken | December 14, 2006 at 12:09 AM

Hi Gretchen,

I really enjoy your blog each day...keep up the great work!

I'm not sure if you've got this far in learning about podcasts, but have you looked into the process for publishing the podcast so that a person can subscribe to it through the iTunes application?

Thanks, Tom

Posted by: Tom | December 14, 2006 at 08:42 AM

I really appreciate your blog. Great second podcast. While I'm not a parent, I think these tips hold true for a lot of other social interactions! Thanks again - this may actually be my favorite blog. And I spend way too much time reading blogs! :-)

Posted by: Jessica | December 14, 2006 at 01:35 PM

Excellent Podcast Gretchen! My energy has been so low and I've been reacting in C form with my son. Your podcast reminded me that I want to be thoughtful and intelligent even when I'm tired.

Thank You and Merry Chistmas,
Lawrence

Posted by: chaoticcricket | December 26, 2006 at 05:46 PM

Hi Gretchen: Just got caught up with your blog. Had to say it has helped me. Thanks!
Been going through a particulary bad patch -5 funerals in 7 weeks! A couple of your statements have helped me a lot - "don't keep score", "learn to frame a response in the affirmative" and "no more junk food." That last didn't help with the funerals, but I like it!
Thanks,
John

Posted by: John Campbell | January 03, 2007 at 09:39 AM

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Gretchen Rubin is a best-selling writer whose new book, The Happiness Project, is an account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. On this blog, she shares her insights to help you create your own happiness project.