The Happiness Project: Forcing myself to wander, following my interests.

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.”

Forcing myself to wander, following my interests.

Bookstackcolor One of my resolutions is to "Force myself to wander," and another, related resolution is to "Follow my interests." Too often, I worry about staying on track and being efficient -- so these resolutions are meant to push me to take the time to explore and to try experiments that don't always work.

Well, I just spent quite a looooooong time on David Drummond's blog. As I've worked on my Happiness Project, and tried to pay better attention to my off-topic interests, I've realized that I am extremely interested in the issue of book-cover design. Well, once I started on this site, I couldn't stop.

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Posted July 31, 2008

Comments

With your new resolution to "wander"

I urge you to spend more than 3 minutes here

www.smile-therapy.com

A few things you ll love:
>> A dogs letter to God(S-T Favorite)
>> The Green Salsa Recipe is Delish
>> Click on the "Share Ideas " icon where it ll ask you severlal questions that will make you WANT TO share some tips

>> Also.. the 30 day trial give you FULL ACCESS to

1.)The Complete Library of Wisdom (approaching 300 tips)
2.) The Email Archive.. TONS of VALUE here

You ll be glad you took the time to Stop by for your DAILY SMILE!

Posted by: Timothy Smith | August 15, 2008 at 12:59 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.