The Happiness Project: Happiness quotation from Colette.

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
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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.”

Happiness quotation from Colette.

Colette2 “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” --Colette.

Coming across this quotation was one of the things that most inspired me to start my Happiness Project.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Posted September 20, 2008 in Quotation

Comments

I hope I don't realize it too late. I think I should be happy now, but...

Posted by: Ryan | September 20, 2008 at 04:03 PM

My grandmother, 88 years old (turning 89 in two months), frequently comments on the fact that she has "had a wonderful life." And she truly has. I don't know if she realized it while it was happening, or if she was too busy living it. Either way I can only hope that when I am her age (should I be so blessed to reach it), I can look back and be as content as she is.

Posted by: Kristin | September 20, 2008 at 04:55 PM

Wow! That is a powerful statement. I try to remind myself every day what a wonderful life I have. Sometimes it's hard to remember, sometimes it's easy.

Posted by: Gayle | September 20, 2008 at 06:37 PM

You made me think. My blog post today is about making less stress a choice, so that you can make more room for happiness.

I had not thought of the fact that you also have to acknowledge it. You can't make progress in any area until you acknowledge your growth.

Many blessings

Posted by: Carrie Tucker | September 21, 2008 at 08:12 AM

Gretchen, I just came across your site and am wow'ed by it. There's so much information and your one-minute movie was very moving and made me wish I have a daughter. I've felt that I have a wonderful life for some time now, and love the Colette quote. Keep up the good project!

Posted by: Daphne Lim | September 21, 2008 at 08:39 AM

In my search for answers, what I realized over and over again is that until you can live in the moment with full mindfulness, you are not living at all and can not be happy. Period.

Posted by: Yan Zhu | September 21, 2008 at 08:42 AM

I think it's great that this quotation inspired you! It sums up what a lot of us are afraid of -- finding out too late what the true joys in life really are.

Posted by: tiffany | September 21, 2008 at 12:18 PM

The older I become, the more I realize and cherish this each day. I just wish I had known and believed this in my 20s!Thanks for sharing :)

Posted by: Karmachick | September 21, 2008 at 06:55 PM

GREAT quote! I think we could all use this great advice from Colette. Time will get away from us and before we realize the amazing things we have to live for and be happy about, it's over.

Thank you!

Posted by: Paige | September 21, 2008 at 08:26 PM

Hi there, G. One of the reasons I started keeping my blog was as a regular reminder of how blessed I am in my life; that it is a 'wonderful' life ( as in full of wonder) regardless of the ups & downs that make it all so interesting!

Posted by: JulietteD | September 22, 2008 at 03:29 PM

Unlike most, that quote makes me sad because I definitely interpret it differently. It puts into words one of my darkest fear - that you could be having a good life and not realize it until the end. That you could be so caught up in seeking, questioning and worrying that you didn't realize your life was good.

mph

Posted by: mph | September 26, 2008 at 03:12 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.