The Happiness Project

Forcing myself to wander, following my interests.

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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I’ve started sending out short monthly newsletters that will highlight the best of the previous month’s posts. If you’d like to sign up, click on the link in the upper-right-hand corner of my blog. Or just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “newsletter” in the subject line. I’ll add your name to the list.

Clutter-busting: Eight tips for preparing for a real (or virtual) move.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Eight tips for preparing for a real (or virtual) move.

Knowing my preoccupation with clutter-clearing, a friend emailed me a few days ago: “I am starting the great purge of our belongings in preparation for moving. What mantras should I be using?

Good question! Moving is a fantastic opportunity to tackle clutter. And even if you’re not thinking about moving, you might want to try the “virtual move” – you look at what you have, and ask yourself, “If I were moving, would I bother to wrap this in bubblewrap and stick it in a box? Or would I chuck it or give it away?”

Whether you’re really moving, or virtually moving, here are some questions to ask yourself, as you consider whether some particular piece of stuff is worth keeping. Remember, you have to be HONEST!

1. Do I actually use this?

2. If I get rid of this, and it turns out I need it, how hard will it be to replace?

3. How many of this object do I really need? E.g., how many coffee mugs do you actually use? Beware of what’s called the “maximum-use imperative” -- the fact that people will often buy or keep something to accommodate a use that they need only rarely (like a dining room table big enough to seat the whole family, who visits once every two years). Also, although you may be tempted to keep every usable rubber band or every packet of ketchup that comes into your house, if you’re never going to use them up, get rid of the excess.

4. Does this work properly? If not, get it fixed, give it away, or throw it away.

5. At this moment, do I know how to operate this thing?

6. Am I keeping a gift out of sentiment or politeness, even though I don't really like or need it?

7. Am I keeping something as a memento? That's ok, but pick your mementos wisely. Try to pick things that don’t take up too much room. You don’t need lots of mementos from the same period of time. You can take a picture of something if you just want the visual cue, but don’t really want to use the thing -- this is especially useful when the memento is large, say, your father's desk.

Most important...
8. When in doubt, throw it out! (or give it away).

Tip: I find it’s much easier for me to get rid of things when I can envision that my things will be better used by someone else. So, as you prepare for your real or virtual move, take the time to identify destinations for your stuff. Do you know a family who could use your hand-me-downs? A thrift store that accepts used toys? Would you post a notice so that someone who wanted something could come take it? Etc.

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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.

Happiness interview with Guy Kawasaki.

From time to time, I post short interviews with interesting people about their insights on happiness. During my study of happiness, I’ve noticed that I often learn more from one person’s highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies. There’s something peculiarly compelling and instructive about hearing other people’s happiness stories. I’m much more likely to be convinced to try a piece of advice urged by a specific person who tells me that it worked for him, than by any other kind of argument.

Guy Kawasaki wears innumerable hats – among other things, he has been an entrepreneur, investment banker, venture capitalist, and general visionary. He’s written eight books – my favorite is The Art of the Start – and recently founded an extremely useful, addictive website, Alltop – and keeps an interesting blog, How to Change the World. I’m sure he’s doing a lot more things that I don’t even know about, even though I follow him on Twitter.

He’s a person who conveys tremendous passion and enthusiasm about his interests and his work, so I was curious to see what he had to say about happiness.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Guy: Playing hockey. Nothing is more absorbing to me, so that I forget about everything else. It's blissful for me, and I'm not even good. Maybe if I were good, I wouldn't be absorbed and then it wouldn't be as happy playing it.

Gretchen: What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn¹t know when you were 18 years old?
Guy: One can be happy driving a beat-up minivan. I really thought one would have to drive a Porsche to be happy when I was 18.

Gretchen: Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
Guy: Answering email.

Gretchen: Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve find very helpful?
Guy: No, not really. I'm too busy answering email to remind myself of mantras.

Gretchen: If you're feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost?
Guy: I very seldom feel blue. Honestly. I have a great family, a rewarding and fun career, and my health is pretty good. What's to feel blue about?

Gretchen: Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
Guy: The problem I see is that many people get upset when they cannot control everything. My logic is that you do the best you can and let it rip. If you don't succeed, you just need to live another day to fight another battle.

Gretchen: Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy, and if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?
Guy: The only sustained period when I was truly unhappy was when my wife and I were separated about twenty years ago. Those were the most painful days of my life. Luckily, we worked things out.

Gretchen: Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
Guy: I really don't work on being happy. I work on episodes of joy and try to string as many of these together. Allow me to backtrack: "Happiness" is over-rated in the sense that one can achieve a state where everything is great. That's impossible.

What I try to do is short bursts of joy--like scoring a goal, playing with my children, being with my wife, launching companies. Between these episodes, there are times of pain, boredom, and frustration, but to expect that one can every achieve a time of nothing but good stuff is sure to lead to an unhappy life. How's that for irony?

Gretchen: Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn't--or vice versa?
Guy: My biggest discovery is that my children bring the greatest joy to me. Nothing comes close. I never knew that prior to having children. I feel for people who have never had children.

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I’ve started sending out short monthly newsletters that will highlight the best of the previous month’s posts. If you’d like to sign up, click on the link in the upper-right-hand corner of my blog. Or just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “newsletter” in the subject line. I’ll add your name to the list.

Firefox problems?

I've heard some Firefox users that they're seeing weird images. My beloved Typepad tech support has asked if I cold find out what version of the browser these folks are using -- to them, it looks fine in the latest Firefox 2.0. So if you're seeing the problem, if you could take a second to let me know your version, it would be a huge help.

Thanks!

How do you make it easier for a bunch of 5-year-olds to wait for an elevator?

The Little Girl’s nursery school and summer “camp” is in a school on the sixth floor of a large, busy building. There’s a gym and coffee shop on the third floor, and I often drop her off on the sixth floor, drink coffee and work on my laptop until she’s done for the day, then bring her home.

Because the building is large, its three elevators are always packed and extremely slow. In fact, little kids going to school get a special sticker if they climb to the sixth floor, as a way to try to relieve traffic on the elevators.

I was sitting in the coffee shop when a group of five-year-old campers lined up to get onto the elevator to go back to the sixth floor after a trip to the gym. There was the usual uproar created by a bunch of five-year-olds.

I was thinking, “Boy, I don’t envy the job of that teacher, who’s going to have to try to keep these kids in some kind of order until the elevator arrives.” I anticipated mayhem.

Instead, the teacher led them in a short song,
"Which elevator will it be?
One, two, or three?”

Then she asked for votes. Each child raised his or her hand to vote for elevator one, two, or three. Then the kids waited, thrilled with the suspense, to see which door would open first. When elevator three’s light lit up, the three team clapped.

How simple, how brilliant. A little forethought, a little creativity, a little empathy -- it changed a group of bored, restless kids into a group of watchful, excited kids. A great lesson in happiness-building.

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From some emails that I get, I know that some readers are interested in doing some writing themselves. I recently discovered Allison Winn Scotch's Ask Allison, by a novelist and jounalist, about the publishing process, which I have a lot of fun reading.

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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.

Happiness quotation from Boethius.

“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.” --Boethius

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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.

Happiness Project: Accept the change.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you should have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One common source of unhappiness for people is the failure to accept that some social norm has changed.

For example, a friend of mine dislikes seeing people talking on their cell phones. Even when they’re speaking quietly on the street, just seeing them on the phone bugs him; he doesn’t think people should speak on the phone in public. Another friend is appalled every time she gets an invitation by email.

This problem hits me with the issue of security measures. Going through airport security exasperates me tremendously – also, having my bag examined before I enter a public building, like the New York Public Library.

The last time I was home in Kansas City, my mother and I were doing errands, and she wanted to stop by my father’s office and pick something up from him. She pulled up by the curb, so I could just run up to the fifteenth floor and get it, but as soon as I jumped out, I stuck my head back in the car.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“I don’t have my wallet.”

“You don’t need your wallet!”

“But I don’t have any I.D. with me.”

My mother couldn’t believe that in New York, you have to show identification to enter most large office buildings. It’s so very annoying.

I’m not arguing that people should talk on their cell phones on the street, or not; or that we should stop sending proper paper invitations through the U.S. mail, or not; or that we should abandon security measure altogether, or not.

The fact is, whatever a person might think,the social norms have changed, and people WILL talk on their cell phones, and they will send email invitations, and they will expect to check your bag, take your photo, and write down your name. And life is too short to keep railing about it.

I decided that unless I wanted to become an active, purposeful agent of change, I just had to accept the situation gracefully. Constant grousing just fans the flames of irritation, and to complain about matters that most people find acceptable is iself an annoying trait. As Samuel Johnson observed, “To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.”

Is there any recent change in social norms that bugs you? Have you found a way not to let it get under your skin?

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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.

Happiness projects: they really do work! Here's an example.

Recently I got an email from a reader that made me very HAPPY. I asked if I could post it, because I thought it was such a good example of the fact that doing a Happiness Project can make you happier.

It can be easy to say to yourself, "Why bother?" “Even if I did X, Y, or Z, would it really make a difference?” “I don’t have the time or the freedom to make the kind of big changes that I need to make,” or “Just doing a little bit each day isn’t enough to add up to anything.”

But as this reader’s email shows, if you make up your mind to identify your resolutions, and stick with them, you can see real results. He makes it look so easy! And it’s not hard – you just have to do it.

I would point out that his resolutions were very wisely chosen, and were directly related to outstanding sources of building happiness: creating an atmosphere of growth, building relationships, and “do good, feel good.” Plus he managed to get more exercise, too. Here's the email:

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Gretchen,
In the vein of being mindful and showing gratitude to those you appreciate, I've been meaning to share with you the positive effect your blog has had on my life for a while now. I began reading your daily entries at the beginning of November, last year. I had spent a bit of time thinking about my own happiness prior to coming across your project and found many helpful bits in the things you were writing. I am most interested in the science about happiness and the psychology of assembling a more appropriate approach to life that will lead to positive feelings. Two books that lead me in this direction were The Progress Paradox and Stumbling on Happiness.

Anyway, you had posted a few things on resolutions that inspired me to come up with my own. Knowing that I needed to be specific about things that could be accomplished and that being more social would lead to additional happiness, I wrote out the following three general goals against which I could judge success at the end:

1.) Take A Class
2.) Volunteer
3.) Join A Group

I promptly signed up for two courses at the UC Berkeley Extension to continue learning for my own edification. I also volunteered with the Boy Scout troop that I had been affiliated with while I was in my teens. These two resolutions took up much of my free time for the first half of the year. Recently, I began working toward the third goal and joined a rowing club.

I can tell you, without a doubt, that these three resolutions have led to all of my best experiences this year. I’ve made some important and valuable new friends in my economics class, have learned how to motivate and lead through my experiences with the Boy Scouts, and am continuing to expand my social circle by joining the rowing club (while getting more exercise). Honestly, when people ask me what I'm "up to," I tell them about the things I'm doing because of those resolutions and really sound interesting. More importantly, I'm feeling fulfilled and definitely happier.

I'm now taking a third course at Berkeley and considering joining a wine club. I also walk five times a week, and keep myself motivated to maintain the habit using many of the suggestions you've shared (the one that sticks with me the most is the one from your dad about just having to put the shoes on and get to the mailbox).

I've learned so much through your research and experience and just want you to know that your work is worth the effort. The impact on my life has been immediate, and I'm certain it will last for many years, if not the rest of my life. Sometimes, people say that if the things they do can influence one person, then it was all worth it. Well, you have!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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I got tears in my eyes when I read this email.

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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.

Nineteen tips for cheering yourself up -- from two hundred years ago.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: 19 tips for cheering yourself up—from two hundred years ago.

While reading a biography of English writer Sydney Smith, Hesketh Pearson’s The Smith of Smiths, I stumbled across this letter. In 1820, Smith wrote a letter to an unhappy friend, Lady Morpeth, in which he offered her tips for cheering up.

I have my own variety of tips lists for cheering up, and I was interested to hear what someone from two centuries ago would recommend. Most of Smith's suggestions are as sound now as they were almost 200 years ago – though a few are amusingly odd, and it might be tougher today to work "good blazing fires" into everyday life.

“1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life—not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to you friends, but talk of them freely—they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don’t expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana.”

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A thoughtful reader sent me the link to PocketMod, which shows you how to make your own mini-personal organizer. I can't wait to try it out myself.

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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.

Happiness interview with Tyler Cowen.

From time to time, I post short interviews with interesting people about their insights on happiness.

During my study of happiness, I’ve noticed that I often learn more from one person’s highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies. There’s something peculiarly compelling and instructive about hearing other people’s happiness stories. I’m much more likely to be convinced to try a piece of advice urged by a specific person who tells me that it worked for him, than by any other kind of argument.

Tyler Cowen is one of my blogland friends – I’ve never met him.

Some people argue that the internet/Facebook/email/texting/etc. have a bad impact on our social relationships, because they distract us from face-to-face contact, which is more satisfying. That may be true, but these tools also permit us to have relationships with people we would have otherwise have never known – and that’s very satisfying.

I got to know Tyler through his provocative economics blog, Marginal Revolution. How do economics and happiness overlap? In lots of interesting ways.

He also recently published a fascinating book, Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist. Although his book wasn't about happiness, I found it quite relevant to the Happiness Project.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Tyler: Why don't we start with food, sleep, and sex? There's writing, blogging, and reading too, not to mention consuming artificially created stories. In fact most of life seems to fit under #1.

Gretchen: What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
Tyler: I wasn't so wise at 18 but I'm still not so wise today. I have the same basic temperament, which is the main thing.

Gretchen: Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
Tyler: Not that I can think of. Being grudge-free is very important and I've done OK on that score.

Gretchen: Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve find very helpful?
Tyler: Kids change people, but most people don't change so much otherwise. Acceptance is therefore important.

Gretchen: If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost?
Tyler: Think of me as a liar if you wish, but (short of witnessing the decay or death of loved ones) I don't really get depressed. See #2.

Gretchen: Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
Tyler: Grudges and blaming other people are very harmful, in my view. Their actions really are determined by forces outside their control and it is time to accept that. Don't blame them for what is wrong in your life.

Gretchen: Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy – if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?
Tyler: Same, same, same. Same!

Gretchen: Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
Tyler: I don't believe in working on being happy, I think it produces anxiety. I'm pretty happy but I also don't see happiness as an all-important value. We pursue values other than happiness all the time, and for the better.

Gretchen: Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t – or vice versa?
Tyler: Marriage is good for the happiness of men, but I had expected that. Travel is an interesting issue. It makes people deeper, and makes their internal mental stream much richer, but I'm not sure it ever makes them *happier* per se. It can be a lot of hard work and also some frustration. Still it is worth doing as much as you can.

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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.