The Happiness Project: The happiness of blogging.

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).

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.

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.”

The happiness of blogging.

Realsimplebasket I’ve been getting a kick out of my new gig, writing twice a week for my blog on RealSimple.com, Note to Self. Take a look! (My post today, about happiness tips from Sydney Smith in 1820, is getting a lot of discussion on Fark. Go figure.)

I like checking out my fellow-bloggers on the site, like Nearly Wed and Manic Mommies. Of the new blogs I’ve discovered on RealSimple.com, my favorite is Adventures in Chaos. Hilarious. Best of all, it’s fun to be in the same virtual neighborhood with the folks from Unclutterer, one of my very favorite blogs anywhere.

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New to the Happiness Project? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed: Subscribe to this blog's feed. Or sign up to get email updates in the box at the top righthand corner.
If you're starting your own happiness project, please join the Happiness Project Group on Facebook to swap ideas. It's easy; it's free.

Posted April 17, 2008

Comments

I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. Blogging has been fun for me for years. :)

Posted by: Mrs. Micah | April 17, 2008 at 05:15 PM

I absolutely love the new blog! I'm subscribed and I've devoured each and every post. It's delightful.

Posted by: Sandie Law | April 17, 2008 at 05:35 PM

glad to read you're having fun!!! best, brad

Posted by: etavitom | April 17, 2008 at 09:52 PM

There is a happiness in blogging, isn't there!?:) Your blog sure reminds me of what happiness should be! Thanks!

Posted by: Bertie | April 17, 2008 at 11:02 PM

Realsimple takes ages to load for me... so please keep posting here!

Posted by: frankofile | April 18, 2008 at 06:01 AM

One thing I like about blogging is that it can be therapuetic as I share what I'm learning and helpful to others all at the same time. And when I keep my focus on helping others it always makes me feel better.

Thank you Gretchen for letting us know about your others posts.

Posted by: Jennifer | April 18, 2008 at 05:52 PM

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Gretchen Rubin is a best-selling writer whose new book, The Happiness Project, is an account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. On this blog, she shares her insights to help you create your own happiness project.