Twelve Personal Commandments

Four Splendid Truths

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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.”

Would I tire of the view and the light?

It's Christmastime, so we're staying with my parents in Kansas City. What a treat. Kansas City might not be particularly glamorous, but I love coming back here. The Big Girl made a list of everything she wanted to do during our stay, to make sure we didn't forget some important K.C. activity.

A few years ago, my mother and father moved into an apartment building. Coming from New York, I'm accustomed, of course, to people living in apartments. But in Kansas City, it stills feels wildly exotic and interesting.

During this visit, I've been struck by the light and view from my parents' apartment. They don't look out on anything particularly remarkable, although it's nice to see trees and a garden and, funnily enough, my old school.

What's really beautiful is the light. On Christmas Eve, my mother called us into their bedroom to see the sunrise. We could really see the light changing, the sun reflecting on the clouds before it rose above the horizon, and the city changing color. At the other side of the apartment, we can watch the sun set.

We don't see anything like this from our apartment in New York, because the buildings are too close together.

My parents mentioned that seeing the sun rise and set was one of the things they like best about the apartment. And I was glad to hear that they really appreciated their view. I thought that they might have become accustomed to it, and not even registered it any more.

The things that happen all the time--the things that we count on experiencing again easily--are so easy to disregard. How many times have I said to myself, "It's a gorgeous spring day, but I want to spend the whole day in the library, with barely a minute out of doors. I don't need to try to enjoy this day, I'll enjoy some other gorgeous day, when it's more convenient."

If I lived in this apartment all the time, would I become oblivious to the light and the view? And what am I not noticing, in my own life, that would seem beautiful or interesting if I were a visitor?

*
Happy birthday, Adora! I hope you had a lovely day.


Posted December 26, 2006

Comments

Thank you so much for remembering! :D

Posted by: adora | December 26, 2006 at 11:28 PM

Gretchen, good post. I think part of becoming self-aware, attracting positive experiences and keeping a positive attitude is mastering gratitude for the everyday things that many people take for granted. Toward this end, I try to appreciate all the natural beauty of wherever I'm living and be grateful for the small things that surround me every day. It's an exercise well worth doing.

Posted by: Monica Ricci | December 27, 2006 at 12:20 AM

I, too, have all too often succumbed to the "convenience" of whether or not I enjoy a particulary pretty day outdoors. My absolute favorite days are the sparkly clear, bright and sunny but cool days we get mostly in October, sometimes in September or November. These are days when the atmosphere is so clean it's like God washed his windows! I'm still "just" in my 40's, but the older I get the more I think about how we only have just a certain number of days like that in our lives, and we never know how many they will be. I really enjoy them more when I think of that.

Posted by: Sharyn | December 27, 2006 at 05:23 PM

From your readership in Kansas -- er...well, at least me -- welcome back & sorry to see you go.

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Gretchen RubinGretchen 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.

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