The Happiness Project: This Saturday: a happiness quotation from Samuel Butler.

I'm working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT--a memoir about the year I spent test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t. On this daily blog, I recount some of my adventures and insights as I grapple with the challenge of being happier. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will hit the shelves in late 2009 (HarperCollins).

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Every Wednesday is Tip Day.

Secrets of Adulthood.

The best reading is re-reading.
Outer order contributes to inner calm.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
You manage what you measure.
By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished.
People don’t notice your mistakes and flaws as much as you think.
It's nice to have plenty of money.
Most decisions don't require extensive research.
Try not to let yourself get too hungry.
Even if you think they're fake, it's nice to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day.
If you can't find something, clean up.
The days are long, but the years are short.
Someplace, keep an empty shelf.
Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.
It's okay to ask for help.
You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you LIKE to do.
Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.
What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.
You don't have to be good at everything.
Soap and water removes most stains.
It's important to be nice to EVERYONE.
You know as much as most people.
Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.
Eat better, eat less, exercise more.
What's fun for other people may not be fun for you--and vice versa.
People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.
Houseplants and photo albums are a lot of trouble.
If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
No deposit, no return.

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.”
G.K. Chesterton: “Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.”
Solon: “Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.”

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« Here’s a quick, easy, free way to boost your happiness: get more SLEEP. | Main | A secret to happiness and love: PAY ATTENTION. »

This Saturday: a happiness quotation from Samuel Butler.

"One can bring no greater reproach against a man than to say that he does not set sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no greater sign of a fool than the thinking that he can tell at once and easily what it is that pleases him. To know this is not easy, and how to extend our knowledge of it is the highest and the most neglected of all arts and branches of education." --Samuel Butler

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June 23, 2007 | Permalink

Technorati Tags: daily life, happiness, identity, leisure, pleasure, Samuel Butler

Comments

Hey, thought you would be interested in this article in the Globe and Mail about happiness and Bogota, Colombia

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070622.whappycover0623/BNStory/lifeMain/home

Posted by: starbucksweetie | June 23, 2007 at 10:02 AM

Thanks, I'm off to check out the link now!

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | June 23, 2007 at 10:12 AM

Gretchen,

Doesn't the Declaration of Independence talk about Life, Liberty, and Happiness? Haven't we come to expect and demand happiness? Don't we all feel the clock ticking to find happiness and fulfillment in our lives? When we cannot achieve it, aren't we resentful of those who have?

Of course, our Declaration of Independence talks only of the "Pursuit of Happiness." Life offers no such guarantees. The problem comes when we build expectations - when we see people who are busy and assume that they're happy. We want that too.

What most of us are looking for when we say we want "happiness" is excitement (as opposed to boredom) and fulfillment (as opposed to being discontented and always longing for something more).

Samuel Butler is quite right in saying that knowing how to find these things and expand ourselves through our knowledge of these things is no small task.

Posted by: David at ReflectionsCoachingLLC.com | June 23, 2007 at 02:46 PM

Hi Gretchen,

I recently picked up a book at my local library that I think you'd find interesting: On Desire: Why we want what we want, by William B Irvine, (OUP 2006).

It's a philosophical investigation of desire and is filled with thought-provoking quotes. Besides the subject matter, it's all the quotes that made me think of you!

I've been enjoying your blog for several months now.

Jessica

Posted by: Jessica | June 23, 2007 at 06:16 PM

Linked to you today in a post I wrote on How to Be Happy. Added you to my blog roll as well. I love your site! -kevin

Posted by: Kevin Bedell | June 24, 2007 at 12:21 AM

Hi, Found a cool news widget for our blogs at http://www.widgetmate.com/news . Now I can show the latest news on my blog. Worked like a breeze.

Posted by: Mark Vane | June 25, 2007 at 09:43 AM

Thanks for the recommendation of On Desire -- just the kind of thing I love, and in fact, I've already read it! Thanks for sending along the suggestion, right on target.

Kevin -- thanks for shinining a spotlight on the Happiness Project and for your kind words, I'm off to check out your site right this minute.

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | June 25, 2007 at 05:21 PM

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My earth-shattering happiness formula.

To be happier, you need to think about FEELING GOOD, FEELING BAD, and FEELING RIGHT, in an atmosphere of growth. Clunky, but it works.

My second ground-breaking insight into happiness.

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.

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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
“For the love of God and my Sisters (so charitable toward me) I take care to appear happy and especially to be so.” St. Therese
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.” Samuel Johnson
“I must do the work that I am best suited for…” Edward Weston daybook
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope
“How slight and insignificant is the thing which casts down or restores a mind greedy for praise.” Horace

My books

Gretchen Craft Rubin: Profane Waste: Essay by Gretchen Rubin And Photographs by Dana Hoey
A collaboration with artist Dana Hoey that examines the question: why do people destroy their own possessions?
Gretchen Rubin: Forty Ways to Look at JFK
A biography that grapples with the enduring puzzle: what made Kennedy such a dazzling, unforgettable figure?
Gretchen Rubin: Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill : A Brief Account of a Long Life
A concise biography of Winston Churchill.
Gretchen Craft Rubin: Power Money Fame Sex : A User's Guide
Social criticism in the form of a user's guide.

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