The Happiness Project: This Sunday: a happiness quotation from Miyamoto Musashi.

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 Sunday: a happiness quotation from Miyamoto Musashi.

"Speed is not part of the true Way of strategy. Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast….Of course, slowness is bad. Really skillful people never get out of time, and are always deliberate, and never appear busy." --Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

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A great site, The Simple Dollar, just joined the LifeRemix network. A ton of great information there, with a focus on frugality and sane living.

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Posted November 18, 2007

Comments

Gretchen,

I couldn't agree more!

John Wooden said: "Be quick, but don't worry."

David

Posted by: David B. Bohl at SlowDownFAST.com | November 18, 2007 at 10:27 PM

Darn that spell check -
"Be quick, but don't HURRY."

Posted by: David B. Bohl at SlowDownFAST.com | November 18, 2007 at 10:34 PM

I like the way you've categorized the three types of fun; I think it makes sense. Just wanted to add that some relaxing fun can go a long way to increase happiness. I have a challenging job and spend a lot of time accommodating my family - a couple hours on the internet or watching a TV program I like maximize my happiness for the week! My husband seems to have an even greater need for relaxing fun and enjoys many hours reading books. I think the right balance depends on the person, and it isn't that the two "harder" types of fun are "better", but you need to find your own balance to maximize happiness.

Posted by: Maria Byrne | November 19, 2007 at 11:12 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.