The Happiness Project: Grab those moments of happiness as they wing by.

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.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the happiness studies that show that happy people construe their lives in ways that reinforce happiness, while unhappy people construe their lives in ways that reinforce unhappiness. For example, unhappy folks don’t think about good times. They have as many good experiences as other people, but they don’t remember them as well.

So I’ve been trying to dwell on my feelings of happiness, excitement, relief, gratitude, and love, instead of passing through these states thoughtlessly. This is harder than it sounds; because of the “negativity bias,” bad news makes a much deeper impression, and it’s easy to take happy news or experiences for granted.

For example, yesterday I got an email telling me that Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill was going back to press for a fourth (small) printing. “Great,” I thought absent-mindedly, and continued scrolling down my emails.

Then I thought—wait! This is good news! Take a moment to feel happy!

To help myself enjoy the moment, I pulled down my copy of the book and leafed through it. My goodness, I loved working on that book. I loved learning about Winston Churchill, I loved thinking about the nature of biography, I loved the “forty ways” structure. I loved reading everything Winston Churchill wrote. I re-read Churchill's “We shall go on to the end…” speech and cried for probably the hundredth time.

My day was patchy—some good, some bad. Taking a moment to enjoy the good news, and to remember the happiness I felt while I was writing about Churchill, helped boost my overall mood.

Oh dear, here comes another happiness banality…accentuate the positive. What can I say? It really works.

Comments

I came upon your site via a mention at Colleen the Communicatrix's a couple days ago, and I'm hooked.

How memory works is an interest of mine that I've been meaning to read more about, but I hadn't thought of researching it from a happiness angle which may ultimately prove more useful.

Congratulations on the 4th printing!

Posted by: claire | February 09, 2007 at 08:58 PM

Great news, Gretchen. I've added it to my 'must buy and read' list.

Posted by: Mitch Wheat | February 10, 2007 at 01:48 AM

Congratulations Gretchen!

I've just started a new blog, and I've been greatly inspired by yours. My blog is actually a way for me to kind of grab those happiness moments, it's like a scrapbook of happy thoughts. At some point, I'll have serious posts too.

I really love your blog :)

Posted by: shuchetana | February 11, 2007 at 08:10 AM

Posted by: shuchetana | February 11, 2007 at 08:11 AM

Thanks folks! And Shuchetana, I checked out your blog, "Happiness Creator." I love the idea of a "scrapbook of happy thoughts." I will be visiting often to see what you have to say!

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | February 11, 2007 at 08:33 PM

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