My Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

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April 9, 2007
12 Comment

In terms of happiness, I’ve been feeling under the weather.

HurricaneI haven’t behaving very well lately. More specifically, I think it would be fair to say that I’ve been touchy, irritable, demanding, and humorless.

It always seems to me that my behavior is perfectly appropriate and justifiable, given the circumstances – usually, other people’s failures and faults.

Deep down, though, I know that I am the problem.

I keep thinking of the words of Goethe, “I make the weather.” “I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.”

One of my Twelve Commandments is to “Identify the problem,” so I asked myself, “Why have I slacked off in keeping my expectations for myself, and therefore made myself less happy? What’s the problem?”

And I realized that one thing that might be affecting my goal-keeping was that I’d stopped scoring myself on the daily resolution charts I kept last year. Once the official “year” of the Happiness Project was over, although I planned to keep up with all the resolutions, I thought I didn’t need to bother to score myself.

I suspect that this has really made a difference. Going over my extensive scoring chart each day made me accountable to myself, it gave me positive and negative reinforcement (those gold stars I crave!), and it kept me reviewing my vows daily.

Keeping my resolutions really does keep me happy. One major discovery from the Happiness Project is that one of my main sources of unhappiness is feeling remorse for bad behavior. And then I feel even more irritable, defensive, and humorless…it’s not a good cycle.

I just printed out a fresh set of charts and stuck them in my backpack. It looks like this may need to be a lifetime habit.

*
For me, external order is a key element to internal peace — I’ve found that I’m far more serene when I’m in an environment that’s not cluttered or crowded, and clearing out the junk gives me a big boost of happiness. I got a vicarious clutter-clearing buzz from reading the A Chair is a Closet blog. The “before” and “after” pictures are an inspiration.

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  • http://www.myemptybucket.com Adam Morris

    That sounds like a lot of pressure on yourself to be happy and not slack-off.
    Perhaps there is nothing wrong with being touchy, irritable and demanding for a little while. I was feeling a bit irritable and useless recently, and I found myself resisting it and feeling guilty that I should get my act together. Then a friend suggested that there was nothing wrong with the way I felt, and that I should just let go of my pressure to be anything different than irritable and useless. A bit of a Viktor Frankl approach in retrospect, but it did the trick.
    And it is kind of fun giving yourself permission to be on the other side of the fence.

  • angie

    Hey Gretchen, any chance you might post those charts? If they’re helpful to you, maybe they’d help the rest of us, too.

  • http://jackiedanicki.com Jackie Danicki

    I think you are quite right that the resolutions check will work – most self-set rules do, if one sticks to them and if there is an element of accountability involved. Is there someone to whom you can be accountable for sticking to your rules? (I’m aware they may be too personal to share on the blog.)
    Also, Gretchen, I would offer something that my therapist has been trying to get through to me for several months: If one is capable of feeling a host of complex feelings (as I am, and as I am sure you are), it is important not to avoid even the negative ones, which are only truly destructive when they sneak up on us. Perhaps examining your feelings in more depth – instead of trying to glide past them in the quest for happiness – might quell the outbursts. I say this as someone who could have written the first paragraph of this blog post myself (I feel sick to consider what I put my loved ones through with my moods, snappishness, and demands), not as an expert in anything. I just find that when I do take the time to feel the negative feelings, I am able to live with them in a more agreeable way that does not have a destructive impact on those around me.

  • Heather

    I agree, I’d love to see the charts. Even if you take your own information out so we don’t see exactly what you’re rating yourself on, I think the layout of the charts would be helpful. I have tried to do such things for myself and they never seem to work.
    Enjoying the blog!
    Heather

  • Michelle

    You put into words exactly how I’ve been feeling/behaving lately. And the frustrating part is that I can tell I’m doing it in the moment and just keep forging ahead. Then, as soon as the moment has passed, I am disappointed and annoyed with myself for letting it happen. Blah.
    I’d love it if you’d pass on your charts. Might benefit everyone to take a look at their day and make themselves accountable.
    I truly enjoy your blog. Thanks for including the rest of us in your journey.

  • http://www.happiness-project.com Gretchen Rubin

    Thanks for the great comments. I do think there is some value in experiencing a bad mood (it can show you what you need to change in your life). What I DON’T like is when I just act like a pill because I’m being self-indulgent. I make everyone miserable, including myself. But I agree, fighting a bad mood isn’t always the right course — the challenge is to get something helpful out of it.
    Post my charts…I’d be happy to do that. I need to give some thought about how to do it in the most useful way. They’re in a grid, with the resolutions (about 8 per month) across the top and the calendar days running down the left column. Maybe I should attach as a PDF…or just list the resolutions in a post…but I think that seeing the scoring system is helpful. I copied Ben Franklin’s scoring chart from his Autobiography. I’ll figure this out and put something up asap. Thanks for your interest! I hope it’s a useful model.

  • http://beyond-assumptions.blogspot.com steve

    I think that feelings reflect need states. They usually aren’t positive or negative in and of themselves. What becomes problematic is our way of dealing with them — through avoidance, say, or through self-indulgence (approaches that don’t really address the emotional need and often compound the difficulty).
    I’d read your blog a couple of times and thought I’d add my two cents. Thank you for sharing this.

  • http://mrsronk.blogspot.com holli jo

    Yes — I would also like to see the chart, or find out how you made it so I can make one for myself. I love charts and little gold stars! Motivates me, too.

  • John

    Maybe all of this pursuing happiness business can make you miserable. Here’s an essay from the CATO institute that seems to agree with the John Stuart Mill school of happiness. (Though I ‘m more from your school of thought, Gretchen. Thanks for the blog.)
    http://tinyurl.com/3yocwc

  • http://jonobie.livejournal.com Jonobie

    If you’re interested in a technology-enabled version of your charts, consider Joe’s Goals:
    http://www.joesgoals.com/
    I use it to track my goals and it produces these lovely charts that I can look back over every so often. Also, it’s cool because I can weight various goals so I’m rewarded more for completing a big goal.
    I keep the link in my daily links so it pops up every day on my browser during reading time and reminds me to fill it out.
    I wrote in more detail about the goals I chose and my use of the application here: http://jonobie.livejournal.com/49600

  • http://hpshappy.blogspot.com HP van Duuren

    If you ‘Identify the Problem’ than your focussing your attention – and energy – on ‘Problems’. This way you ‘feed’ ‘Problems’. (First of all the word ‘Problem’ has a ‘Negative Charge’, so you better call it – more nutral – ‘a situation’.) The thing you really want to focus your attention on is on the situation you want.

  • http://www.TheThoughtfulConsumer.blogspot.com Cynthia Friedlob

    I’ve only recently discovered your blog, and I’m looking forward to exploring it further. But meanwhile I’d like to share a couple of thoughts on this current post.
    First, regarding your comment: “…external order is a key to internal peace.” I could not agree more! In fact, I blog and write, fairly relentlessly, about the joys of unburdening ourselves by letting go of our excess possessions. How can a person find clarity in chaos? I speak from my own experience letting go of “stuff” that no longer fit my life, including some very lovely family heirlooms. It was a long and difficult but liberating exercise. I checked out the “A Chair Is a Closet” blog and found it inspiring. Thanks for the link!
    Also, regarding your comment: “One major discovery from the Happiness Project is that one of my main sources of unhappiness is feeling remorse for bad behavior. And then I feel even more irritable, defensive, and humorless…it’s not a good cycle.”
    Please re-read your Commandment 9: “Lighten up!” I will re-read it with you, regularly, so that it might sink in for me, too. We all behave “badly” at times and those of us with even half a conscience do a pretty fine job of beating ourselves up over it. This is not helpful.
    Finally, your effort to “identify the problem” might be better served by choosing to “identify the feeling.” We behave “badly” when we feel tired, angry, frustrated, thwarted, or maybe we just have low blood sugar. I agree with the suggestion that it’s important to allow yourself to feel whatever you’re feeling so that you can trace the motivation back to its source and then try to figure out how to be pro-active to resolve (or learn to accept) the situation. The more you do this, the less likely you are to act up — at least, so I’m told. I hope someone reminds me of this the next time I’m irritable and annoying!

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