The Happiness Project: A quotation from Kurt Vonnegut.

The Happiness Project

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).

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.”

I'm a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, but I hadn't read this passage from A Man Without a Country until a thoughtful reader passed it along to me.

It had particular resonance, because yesterday I posted about the four stages of happiness, and here, Vonnegut emphasizes the importance of stage three -- "express my happiness to myself or others" -- in his own inimitable style. Wise advice, backed up by science.

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Comments

I agree that we miss the beautiful moments in life only to recognize that we had them sometimes many years later...
Here's an article I wrote about this..

http://www.reddeerblog.com/2007/04/life-so-beautiful.html

I just recently discovered your site and have found great knowledge and entertainment here, thanks...Eduardo

Posted by: eduardo | April 14, 2007 at 07:24 PM

I feel the same way. And this is also true of beauty. One of the bennefits of blogging kstyle everyday is that I have become so much more fine tuned to the beauty that surrounds me every day. k

Posted by: kstyle | April 14, 2007 at 07:58 PM

Gretchen,

I normally don't get emotional when a celebrity dies, but when Kurt died I felt as if I have lost a friend.

This quote really brings it home. He's gone. But he lives on in all the little hints and instructions that he left us on how to really live.

Thanks for the quote. It made my day. And if that isn't nice, I don't know what is. ;)

Scott

Posted by: Scott Davis | April 14, 2007 at 09:02 PM

Dear Gretchen,

I discovered your blog last week and I have to tell you that reading it adds to my happiness.Reading your blog has become a daily habit.Keep up the good work. I read that you are working on your happiness project, but I am wondering are you going to ever publish your blogs for the public?

Natasha

Posted by: Natasha F. | April 14, 2007 at 09:33 PM

I'm new to your blog, too, but if it isn't nice, I don't know what is. Thank you!

Posted by: patry | April 14, 2007 at 10:39 PM

Hi Gretchen,

Have you tried the advice my co-hosts and I give on The Happiness Show http://www.thehappinessshow.com ?

Posted by: George Ortega | April 15, 2007 at 02:05 AM

In just the few months I've been reading your blog, I've seen how much you've taken something that was already good and made it even better. You are really saying something with The Happiness Project. And if that isn't nice, I don't know what is.

Posted by: Michael | April 15, 2007 at 11:49 AM

Gretchen--ditto all of the above. I am new here, but you are doing great work. Thank you.

Posted by: BJ Fischer | April 15, 2007 at 12:12 PM

Good thoughts. I think. Vonnegut was a wonderful writer. Its odd that you quote him about happiness, though. He was depressed for most of his life.

Nonetheless, expressing joy does have the tendency to increase it.

Max Weiman
author of A Simple Guide to Happiness

Posted by: Max Weiman | April 15, 2007 at 04:40 PM

My goodness, thanks for so many lovely comments. You've made me very happy. It gives me such a boost of enthusiasm and energy to find out that what I'm writing is connecting with other people. I'm off now, to explore the links and suggestions provided...so much great material.

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | April 15, 2007 at 09:56 PM

I too have been profoundly influenced by KV. I had quoted the same passage relevant to my own epiphany more than a year ago...

http://aeoliandissonance.com/bbdblog/2006/02/28/yes-and-if-this-isn’t-nice…/

http://aeoliandissonance.com/bbdblog/2007/04/11/so-it-goes/

Posted by: bbd | April 15, 2007 at 10:55 PM

Thank you for this blog - it really is important to focus on happiness - Like your fellow readers your bolg is now daily reading...Good luck with everything and keep smiling....thank you again

Posted by: Daniel | April 16, 2007 at 06:52 AM

aww. If this post isn't nice, I don't know what is. It made me all fuzzy inside. :)

Posted by: Annette | April 16, 2007 at 07:23 AM

"Good thoughts. I think. Vonnegut was a wonderful writer. Its odd that you quote him about happiness, though. He was depressed for most of his life."

Max, isn't it tragic that those who bring us the greatest happiness; Vonnegut and Beethoven for example, spent most of their lives in despair? To me, it makes their contribution even more poignant. I know Vonnegut suffered, but I also know that out of his suffering he gave the world an incredible gift. That's why art is so precious.

Posted by: Scott Davis | April 16, 2007 at 09:11 AM

Hey Gretchen,

As I was reading today's and yesterday's article, I realized a lot of what you are talking about is the law of attraction. If you ever get a chance you should watch "The Secret" it goes into great detail about the law of attraction.

Basically, the law of attraction states that what you think and feel is what you are attracting to yourself. If you are thinking about that new episode of your TV program, anticipating it, you are attracting it to yourself. It also explains how we attract negative things into our lives, without even realising it.

All your happiness stages are explained in the DVD "The Secret" (http://www.thesecret.tv) plus a great deal of other information about happiness and getting what you want from life. It also happens to be a well done movie so you will enjoy watching it too.

Keep up the great blog.

Posted by: Mark Newman | April 16, 2007 at 09:16 AM

Reading Vonnegut made me happy.

Posted by: phquaryn | April 16, 2007 at 09:36 AM

I really enjoy your blog. I came across this quote recently and thought you might find it amusing:
"IF ONLY we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time." Edith Wharton

Posted by: Heather | April 16, 2007 at 02:12 PM

I saw Vonnegut in person a few years ago. He was a few feet away from me, and I stood there, in silent awe, my mouth hanging open. I wish words had fallen out. Instead, nothing did. And sometimes I think how unhappy I am that I never said hello. But then I think, "How happy I am that I was in the same space as this fellow at all."

I wrote about this on my world-famous website here: http://www.jodiverse.com/2007/04/12/god_bless_you_mr_vonnegut.html#1902

Great great great work, Ms. Gretchen. You should also know that I have adopted/adapted one of your Commandments: "Be Jodi", I tell myself every day.

Thanks for the great reading!

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