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  • Just drop me an email. The first part is grubin (then that familiar symbol). The second part is gretchenrubin (then a period, then a com). Sorry to be convoluted--because of spam.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.

Secrets of Adulthood.

  • The best reading is re-reading.
  • Outer order contributes to inner calm.
  • The opposite of a great truth is also true.
  • You manage what you measure.
  • By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished.
  • People don’t notice your mistakes and flaws as much as you think.
  • It's nice to have plenty of money.
  • Most decisions don't require extensive research.
  • Try not to let yourself get too hungry.
  • Even if you think they're fake, it's nice to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day.
  • If you can't find something, clean up.
  • The days are long, but the years are short.
  • Someplace, keep an empty shelf.
  • Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.
  • It's okay to ask for help.
  • You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you LIKE to do.
  • Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.
  • What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.
  • You don't have to be good at everything.
  • Soap and water removes most stains.
  • It's important to be nice to EVERYONE.
  • You know as much as most people.
  • Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.
  • Eat better, eat less, exercise more.
  • What's fun for other people may not be fun for you--and vice versa.
  • People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.
  • Houseplants and photo albums are a lot of trouble.
  • If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
  • No deposit, no return.

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.”
  • G.K. Chesterton: “Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.”
  • Solon: “Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.”

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« This Saturday: a happiness quotation from Marguerite Yourcenar. | Main | Happiness interview with ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse. »

True happiness fact: challenge brings happiness (after it brings frustration and anxiety).

MailboxOne of the least pleasant conclusions I’ve reached is that, darn it, the experts are right when they say that novelty and challenge lead to happiness.

I dislike not knowing what I’m doing, I resist change and learning new things, I love routine – but I’ve seen, over and over, that novelty and challenge do indeed make me happier, once I suffer through the anxiety and frustration of trying something new.

This blog is a good example. It’s a huge source of happiness, but also a fairly major source of frustration. But the more I do, the easier it gets, plus I have the satisfaction of seeing my accomplishments along the way. I remember when I couldn’t even post an image. This progress gives me the “atmosphere of growth” that’s the fourth, and critical, prong of my First Splendid Truth.

Now I have a new, exciting opportunity for novelty and challenge! (Translation: I’m spending a lot of time feeling frustrated and dumb, but I’m making progress.) I’m going to start sending out a short monthly newsletter.

Sending a newsletter is one of those tasks that will become fairly easy after I send out the first three – when everything has been set up, and I’ve got the kinks worked out. But until then, novelty and challenge abound.

All my happiness-project lessons have come into play, in a way that seems almost comical.

Example: I couldn’t figure out what newletter vendor to use, and couldn’t budge past that initial question, but as the Zen masters say, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” and last week I met an extremely knowledgeable person who had just researched this question. This guy picked MailChimp, so I did the same.

I signed up with MailChimp. More challenge, more frustration. Aargh, I don’t have a logo; I don’t know how to use PhotoShop to create a banner image; I can’t decide how big the top image should be; I can’t quite figure out how to put the sign-up-for-this-newsletter box on my blog; etc., etc.

I remind myself: “Embrace novelty and challenge!” “Enjoy the fun of failure!” “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!” “If the student is ready, the teacher will appear!” “Take time to wander!” “Put myself in jail!” “Start simple, start now!” These help.

The happiness won’t hit for a while. Now is the frustrating part. But when I send out my first email newsletter, then it will come.

So, if you’d like to sign up for my monthly newsletter, please shoot an email to grubin AT SYMBOL gretchenrubin DOT com. No need to write anything more than “newsletter” in the subject line. I’ll add your name to the list.

Once a month, I’ll send you a round-up of the month’s ever-popular Wednesday Tips lists, the Friday suggestions for Your Happiness Project, and a note about what happiness topic generated the most buzz on my site.

I foresee a lot of frustration before I get to the happy day when I mail out my first newsletter. But I’ll get there eventually. So sign up!

*
I'd heard about the blog Escape from Cubicle Nation before, and I finally got around to checking it out myself. It's terrific. The main subject is entreneurship, but there's a lot of great material there that's widely applicable, no matter what your work situation.

*
I’m going to start sending out a short monthly newsletter. I hope to have a handy opt-in box up soon, but in the meantime, if you’d like to sign up to get the newsletter, just shoot me an email at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com.

Comments

Hi Gretchen -- I feel your pain! I just posted about a major (for me) victory achieved last night. I felt like a cybergenius when I accomplished my goal.

I'm brand-new to blogging and find there is so much to learn, I'm often overwhelmed, but I just keep plodding along, and this old dog has indeed learned a few new tricks!

Ann

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry

Reminds me of the lyrics of the Alanis Morrisette song, "You Learn". I leave it as an exercise for the student to look up the whole song online (do it), but the chorus is:
You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

I use MailerMailer. aWeber is also supposed to be good. You definitely want to have an online sign-up possible -- few will ever email in saying "newsletter."

[beaming empathy vibes]

Yep, all true all true. I'm in the process of resigning my site, and all those roadblocks sure look big sometimes. But then I realize they are (mostly) figments of my imagination and it makes me feel a little better.

I'm all signed up! Good for you for pushing thru!

I have big dreams. But until I read the book, Harmonic Wealth, I would settle for ordinary. Every so often, I would get inspired and jot down a few ideas for the screenplay I’ve always wanted to write, but most of the time, I would just stick with the familiar and leave it at that.

Not anymore. Since I learned the idea of going “3-For-3”, I’ve seen big changes in my life and that dream no longer seem far fetched. I’m writing EVERY SINGLE DAY and already have the first five scenes of the screenplay completed. And I’m enrolled in a screenplay writing class!

“3-For-3” means THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, AND ACTIONS aligned. So rather than just dreaming about writing and waiting for the story to miraculously appear, I stop and walk through those steps each evening after work: I clear my workspace, open my computer, and then go 3-for-3. I think about the screenplay coming into form, feel the joy and pleasure of the writing, and then act – and begin to type.

I know this seems really, really simple but 99% of the time we forget to go 3-for-3. How often do you think to yourself, I’m gonna lose 15 lbs. and then never do any feeling or acting? Sometimes these things are super-simple. It’s working for me.

Here is the link to read more about the concept of 3-for-3 in James Ray’s Harmonic Wealth: harmonicwealth.com/read

I agree as a big James Ray fan - you must have the 3 for 3 approach - be grateful for all you have and will have - have the feeling of total abundance now. FOCUS on your desires not on your reality.

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My earth-shattering happiness formula.

  • To be happier, you need to think about FEELING GOOD, FEELING BAD, and FEELING RIGHT, in an atmosphere of growth. Clunky, but it works.

My second ground-breaking insight into happiness.

  • 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.

9Rules

  • 9rules

LifeRemix

  • LifeRemix

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
  • “For the love of God and my Sisters (so charitable toward me) I take care to appear happy and especially to be so.” St. Therese
  • “Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
  • “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.” Samuel Johnson
  • “I must do the work that I am best suited for…” Edward Weston daybook
  • “Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope
  • “How slight and insignificant is the thing which casts down or restores a mind greedy for praise.” Horace

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