The Happiness Project: Happiness is...blogging for Slate.

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.”

Happiness is...blogging for Slate.

Slate_2 I’m extremely HAPPY because, as of January 12, the Happiness Project will be a blog on the fabulous online magazine Slate. Zoikes! I’ve been a huge fan of Slate for a very long time, so I was thrilled to be asked to join the fantastic writers there.

My posts will appear first on Slate, then after an eight-hour delay, will appear on this blog as usual. If you get my posts through Feedblitz or RSS, you’ll get them just as you do now.

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Check out Slate! So much good material there.

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If you haven't seen my one-minute movie, The Years Are Short, you might enjoy it.

Posted December 15, 2008 in Work

Comments

This is HUGE Gretchen! Slate will drive a ton of traffic. Congrats!

Posted by: Ben Casnocha | December 15, 2008 at 03:58 PM

Congrats! I had a little Slate gig myself, back in the day...

Posted by: Jul | December 15, 2008 at 04:23 PM

congratulations,
Slate has smart mgt to put you on the team.
Good move for them.
Larry

Posted by: LarryG | December 15, 2008 at 04:58 PM

congrats! great news. just saw the one-minute video. it's gorgeous and very moving. thank you for sharing it, and for putting it together. --jenn

Posted by: jennyl | December 15, 2008 at 06:37 PM

Very cool! Congratulations!

Posted by: Bridget | December 15, 2008 at 07:14 PM

Congratulations, Gretchen!

Posted by: Helen | December 15, 2008 at 07:34 PM

That's great news! Congratulations!

Posted by: adora | December 15, 2008 at 07:42 PM

That is awesome! Way to go!

Posted by: DSlinkard | December 15, 2008 at 07:44 PM

Thanks so much for your good wishes. I really am thrilled.

Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | December 16, 2008 at 06:41 AM

Congratulations! I'm very happy for you!

Posted by: Vi | December 16, 2008 at 09:39 AM

Wonderful Gretchen!

Posted by: LifeMadeGreat | Juliet | December 16, 2008 at 10:04 AM

That's truly wonderful news, Gretchen. I'm thrilled for you!

Posted by: Sonia | December 16, 2008 at 10:25 AM

Wow!! Congratulations, that's fantastic. Slate does some of my favorite writing. Your blog definitely deserves to be up there.

Posted by: Gabe | December 16, 2008 at 10:54 AM

What a coup! Congrats!

Posted by: phquaryn | December 16, 2008 at 10:57 AM

Congrats! What are they paying you to do this? I'm curious what the syndication value of a blog is.

Posted by: FupDuckTV | December 16, 2008 at 02:06 PM

Two of my daily go-tos will now combine! Wahoo!

Posted by: EAC | December 16, 2008 at 02:09 PM

That's fantastic, Gretchen! The more people you are able to reach, the better off this world will be. I finally watched your video, "The Years Are Short", it was so beautiful and moving. I love you!

Posted by: KH | December 18, 2008 at 02:04 PM

Hey Gretchen,

Congratulations! Can't wait to see your stuff on Slate. I've been a reader for quite some time of HP and have been following Slate off and on for years... Now that you're going to be writing there, I have another reason to keep up!

Slate is going to be an awesome platform for your message, and I wish you the best!

Posted by: Greg | December 18, 2008 at 03:50 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.