The Happiness Project: This Saturday: a quotation from Raymond Carver.

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.

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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 Raymond Carver.

My sister and I both had this Raymond Carver poem printed in the Order of Services for our weddings.

Hummingbird

Suppose I say summer,
write the word "hummingbird,"
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.

Now, off to primp, then to the wedding...

Posted May 26, 2007

Comments

Gretchen, that is such a beautiful poem. Raymond Carver is my favorite poet. Thanks for the poem, it made my day.

Posted by: Natasha V. | May 26, 2007 at 09:34 PM

Dear Gretchen,
Raymond Carver is my favorite short story writer ,critic and poet.I have translated most of his works into Farsi.One the best poems is written on his grave.May 25 is his birthday. Thanks for the poem, it made my day.
P.S:Your 12 commandments are excellent and meaningful.

Posted by: asadollah amraee | May 27, 2007 at 03:38 AM

I love Carver as well. Great poem.

Posted by: Dr. Dorree Lynn | May 28, 2007 at 08:20 PM

I sort of don't understand what the poem is getting at. Why would you say something, write another, and expect that to communicate love? Not criticizing - just not getting it. :(

Posted by: Philistine | May 29, 2007 at 01:53 PM

Part of what's lovely about the poem is its enigmatic quality. To me, it captures the way a single word can invoke a flood of emotions and memories shared by a couple.

Not as poetic, but if, for example, I wrote "rosy Patagonia jacket" on a piece of paper and mailed it to the Big Man, he would instantly know what memories I was calling to mind -- when, where, what stage of our relationship.

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | May 29, 2007 at 05:38 PM

Thank you.

Posted by: Philistine | May 30, 2007 at 04:22 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.