The Happiness Project: This is a test. Again.

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 is a test. Again.

Just testing to see if this link works.

Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill

I'd welcome any feedback on whether this link works properly or not. Thanks!

Posted December 13, 2007

Comments

If you meant it to link to the Amazon sales page . . .yes, it does.

Posted by: RKJ | December 13, 2007 at 06:10 PM

Looks good--the link directed me to the book on Amazon.

Posted by: Leslie | December 13, 2007 at 06:13 PM

Works for me! I use a Windows PC and use Google Reader to read The Happiness Project RSS Feed in my Firefox browser.

Posted by: Dawson | December 13, 2007 at 06:25 PM

Yep! It linked me directly from Google Reader to the Amazon page for the book! =)

Posted by: ashpags | December 13, 2007 at 06:49 PM

I subscribe to LifeRemix All via Google Reader(Firefox). No Link in Google Reader, only when I clicked through to the site.

Posted by: Anton | December 13, 2007 at 07:03 PM

It worked for me on my Mac, in Safari. Also using Google Reader.

Posted by: Dee | December 13, 2007 at 07:07 PM

It worked fine for me on my Mac, both in Google Reader (using Firefox) and in Safari.

Posted by: Jeri Dansky | December 13, 2007 at 07:10 PM

The link in the RSS feed in Safari worked ok also.

Posted by: Dave Zawislak | December 13, 2007 at 07:36 PM

The link from Bloglines in Firerox 2.0.0.1.1 on Windows XP landed me at the Amazon page for the book.

Posted by: Alex | December 13, 2007 at 09:29 PM

The link opened Amazon page for the book OK for me.

Posted by: Linda | December 13, 2007 at 10:43 PM

Yep. Worked in both Google Reader and IE7.

Posted by: Craig Harper | December 14, 2007 at 12:38 AM

Great post! Just kidding. Link works in Firefox 2.0.

Posted by: Wesley | December 14, 2007 at 01:26 AM

Phew! thanks so much to MARIE who talked me through the process!

Over and over I see: these things aren't hard to do, once someone tells you exactly how to do it. It's such a huge help when someone takes the time to help.

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | December 14, 2007 at 04:44 AM

HI!
The link works perfect ! Even overhere in BELGIUM :-)

Posted by: M@rK | December 14, 2007 at 07:54 AM

Happy Birthday Gretchen.

Posted by: Matt Langdon | December 14, 2007 at 10:17 AM

It worked perfectly for me - took me to the amazon sales page. Windows PC.

Posted by: Heather at Grace303 | December 14, 2007 at 11:23 AM

works for me in IE 7. :)

Posted by: lynn | December 14, 2007 at 01:05 PM

Happy birthday to a fellow Gretchen. :)

Glad to have stumbled upon your site, keep up the great, postive work!

Posted by: gretchen | December 14, 2007 at 11:01 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.