The Happiness Project: This Saturday: a happiness quotation from William Hazlitt.

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 happiness quotation from William Hazlitt.

“To do any thing, to dig a hole in the ground, to plant a cabbage, to hit a mark, to move a shuttle, to work a pattern, --in a word, to attempt to produce any effect, and to succeed, has something in it that gratifies the love of power, and carries off the restless activity of the mind of man. Indolence is a delightful but distressing state: we must be doing something to be happy.” --William Hazlitt

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My earth-shattering happiness formula incorporates Hazlitt's observation as part of my final element: to be happy, we must think about FEELING GOOD, FEELING BAD, and FEELING RIGHT, in an ATMOSPHERE OF GROWTH.

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Secret Agent Josephine is a fun read, with kicky photos and graphics. I just noticed the great offer -- if readers send in five facts about themselves, "Josephine" will pick one entry a month for a free web graphic. I'm off to try to figure out five things about myself...

Posted June 2, 2007

Comments

Excellent quote for today! Thanks!

Posted by: Janna | June 02, 2007 at 06:29 PM

"Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power
to make me happy or unhappy otday. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is
dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to
be happy in it." --Groucho Marx

Posted by: Delicious Diva | June 03, 2007 at 05:25 PM

Hi Gretchen,

I'm impressed with your profile as well as topics you are interested in. I hit your website through a link from BusinessWeek.
Can you share secrete to be a good writer?
Currently I wish to write blogs for social awareness on health, environment, education etc. How do I start?
I would appreciate for your tips & guidance.

Thanks & Regards,
Ravi
Bangalore, India

Posted by: Ravi | June 04, 2007 at 06:02 AM

Let's see -- for tips for writing, check out my Tips List (left hand column): May 9, 2006 and May 17, 2007. There are so many fabulous sources about how to get started blogging -- just google a few phrases, and you'll be deluged with great material. Good luck!

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | June 04, 2007 at 12:31 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.