The Happiness Project: If you're in the mood to read essays or maxims about human nature.

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.

30-Second
TV Commercial

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.”

If you're in the mood to read essays or maxims about human nature.

On the last day of the month, I post a list of happiness-themed recommended reading.
Yesterday was Tip Day, however, so I held the list until today.

Human nature, or character, is the subject that interests me most, and I love to read essays, maxims, and aphorisms on this topic. I enjoy the new science research and modern writing on happiness, but I'm always struck by the tremendous and complex insights of someone like Samuel Johnson.

Here are some of my favorites work:

Samuel Johnson: The Rambler, The Life of Samuel Johnson
Francis Bacon, Essays
La Rochefoucauld, Maxims
La Bruyere, Characters
Montaigne, Essays
Samuel Butler, The Note Books
William Hazlitt, Selected Writings
Goethe, Maxims and Reflections
Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom
Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, vols I and II (by the way, does anyone know what those words mean?)
Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack

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And mark your calendars! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows goes on sale at 12:01 on July 21st.

Posted February 1, 2007

Comments

Parerga: A term meaning Incidentals and generally used to describe events which took place during the completion of the Labors of Herakles (Heracles) and incidental to the actual Labor.

http://messagenet.com/myths/ppt/Parerga_1.html

paralipomena
n. pl. things added as supplement to main text.

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/difficultwords/data/d0009297.html

Posted by: Hunter Johnson | February 02, 2007 at 09:37 AM

After some searching I found literal definitions for Parerga and Paralipomena, but I think in that in the context of the title they mean "little stories" or "short forgotten tales".

par·a·li·pom·e·na
"things omitted or neglected that are added as a supplement."

Parerga
"1. something that is an accessory to a main work or subject; embellishment.
2. work undertaken in addition to one's principal work."

Posted by: phquaryn | February 02, 2007 at 09:40 AM

Let's all challenge ourselves to work at least one of these words into conversation over the weekend. Clearly they need more use!

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | February 02, 2007 at 08:06 PM

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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.