The Happiness Project: A quotation of a common epitaph.

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.

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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.”

A quotation of a common epitaph.

I haven't researched this properly, but from what I read, this poem was a common eighteen-century epitaph:

Remember, friends, as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.

Posted February 11, 2007

Comments

Ha ha! I always tell my loved ones that when I die I want one of those grim old school tombstones with a skeleton and sickle on it.

Posted by: Jessica | February 11, 2007 at 09:17 PM

Gretchen, I think this poem might have an origin in Latin epitaph "Fuit quod es, eris quod sum" which means "I was what you are, you will be what I am". Although both epitaphs mean the same, I feel that eighteen-century poem sounds less threathening. :)

Posted by: Grigor | February 12, 2007 at 06:28 AM

Memento mori - remember you must die.

Posted by: Paul Anderson | February 12, 2007 at 09:18 AM

Ah, memento mori! That was originally my theme for the month of August, until I decided that "Contemplate the heavens" was more accurate to my project, less obscure (because not in Latin), and less gloomy.

And yes, the catchiness of the epitaph in English offsets somewhat the meaning of the words.

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | February 12, 2007 at 04:22 PM

And yes, the catchiness of the epitaph in English offsets somewhat the meaning of the words.

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | February 12, 2007 at 04:23 PM

On a related note...

I just made a visit to the campus of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. At the entrance to the main quad is a statue of several children and young adults, with an inscription that reads something like, "the youth of the today welcome the youth of tomorrow, and wish you every happiness." I was really touched!

I think part of living a rich life is having a deep awareness of the connections between past, present and future. I think that we tend to think of ourselves as superior to whoever lived before, as if the lives we live are so much more fabulous, interesting and important, without realizing how much of the human condition stays the same. And how we should be appreciative of those who've come before, and have respect for those who are coming after.

Posted by: Michael | February 13, 2007 at 12:51 PM

I was searching for the epitaph on the grave of Flannery O'Connor and got this site. If anyone know this information please let me know. Many thanks.

Posted by: Jack Rogers | July 18, 2008 at 10:44 AM

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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.