The Happiness Project: This Saturday: a happiness quotation from J. M. Barrie.

The Happiness Project

I’m working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, a memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy--from Aristotle to Martin Seligman to Thoreau to Oprah. On this daily blog, I recount my adventures as I grapple with the challenge of being happier. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will hit the shelves in December 2009 (Harper).

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
“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.”

Rackham_2 "John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood in a row you could say of them that they have each other’s nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more." -- J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

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A thoughtful reader sent me the link to her post on her great blog A Little of This, That, and the Other, in which she talks about applying the First Splendid Truth: that to be happier, we need to think about FEELING GOOD, FEELING BAD, and FEELING RIGHT, in an ATMOSPHERE OF GROWTH. It was so encouraging to see someone really understand what I was trying to express. She focused on "feeling bad," which is also the prong that I spend the most time working on.

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Comments

eh, I usually enjoy your quotations, but somehow I can't really enjoy J.M. Barrie given his own sketchy life.

Posted by: John | March 29, 2008 at 04:38 PM

Personally I don't like to dwell on feeling bad because it feels like punishment. I prefer to recognize these feelings then move on to something that brings positive energy.

I used to beat myself up over little things, but as I age I feel that my time is better spent focusing on the good things that I can accomplish.

Posted by: Karl Staib - Your Work Happiness Matters | March 30, 2008 at 03:33 PM

I really didn't equate this quote with happiness. I'm sure others will. Sometimes I think we spend too much time focusing on the "feeling bad" prong. There is nothing wrong with feeling happy, but we do have to help it along, or we will never get there. (IMO) Have a great week!

Posted by: Nancie | March 30, 2008 at 06:29 PM

I often focus on feeling bad and that leads me to what I want to be happy. It's like sand in the bathing suit - it appears while you're enjoying yourself and you want it gone as quickly as possible.

Cheers,
Alex

Posted by: Alex Fayle | March 31, 2008 at 09:36 AM

I still don't get that whole FEELING GOOD, FEELING BAD, and FEELING RIGHT thing.

*embarrassed*

I really just don't get it.

Posted by: Tanya | March 31, 2008 at 11:32 AM

This reminds me of a wonderful tribute by a distinguished economist to his late father:
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/03/in_memoriam_joh.html

Posted by: senderista | March 31, 2008 at 11:16 PM

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