The Happiness Project: This Saturday: a quotation from Bob Dylan.

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.”

This Saturday: a quotation from Bob Dylan.

From Bob Dylan’s riveting memoir, Chronicles:

“I looked at the menu, then I looked at my wife. The one thing about her that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She’s always had her own built-in happiness.”

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This is what I’m striving for – to have my own “built-in happiness.” Not to rely on other people to boost me up, or to let reverses drag me down. Built-in happiness makes it easier to make other people happy, as well.

I imagine this quality would be particularly helpful if you were married to Bob Dylan.

Posted April 21, 2007

Comments

I just took a personality test for a "fun" evening with a women's group I'm involved in and it was really very revealing.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp I am an ENFP which translates as an inspirer. I had my husband and sons take the test also and very interesting. They were scientist, executive and visionery. My point is that I do believe that our personality types are partially responsible for whether or not we are totally self contained people or more dependent on those around us for our feelings of well being and happiness.I do believe that we really are born with traits that predetermine some of our ways of being and experiencing happiness. k

Posted by: Kstyle | April 21, 2007 at 10:16 PM

Hi Gretchen.
I've been following your blog for a while now and really enjoying it. I tend to be a happy, optimistic person. I'm also a big believer that your happiness resides within - meaning you can choose to be happy...or not. However, I see my 7 yr old son's tendancy to focus on the negative and it drives me nuts. So, my question to you is do you think you can teach optimism and a general happy outlook? I know you have a couple of girls yourself and just wondered about your thoughts.

Posted by: losmills | April 21, 2007 at 11:40 PM

I love the Dylan quote about built-in happiness!

Posted by: Heather | April 23, 2007 at 09:27 AM

Losmills -- I've been reading "The Optimistic Child" by Martin Seligman as part of my own explorations of happiness as inspired by Gretchen. I would strongly recommend it to anyone trying to raise optimistic, emotionally resilient children.

Posted by: Sara in Austin | April 23, 2007 at 02:05 PM

Thanks, Sara. I'll definitely check that out.

Posted by: losmills | April 23, 2007 at 06:04 PM

Me too! I can't believe I've missed a book by Seligman, especially on a topic that interests me so much. It's clear that a big part of temperament is inborn, but it's also clear that habits of thinking, attitude, and actions also make a big difference. So try to set a good example!

I LOVE personality tests, can't wait to give this quiz on the suggested link a try. I keep meaning to post about the Enneagram...but can't get started on that here!

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | April 23, 2007 at 09:34 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.