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.”

Why It's Important to "Identify the Problem" (It's Harder than It Sounds).

BlindsMy Eighth Commandment is “Identify the problem.” This sounds like such an obvious thing to do – if you have a problem, of course you know what it is, right? – that it’s hard for me to explain why that commandment is so important.

Fact is, I’ve found that often I’ll suffer some mild annoyance or inconvenience for years, because I just don’t take the time to think about the nature of the problem and how it might be solved. I think this is a mindfulness problem -- not paying enough attention to what is actually happening in the present moment.

Yesterday afternoon, I experienced a perfect example. When I’m writing my book or my blog, I try to work outside my home office, at a library or a coffee shop, where it's easier to concentrate. Recently, for a variety of reasons, I’ve been doing more on-line tasks, so I’ve been spending a lot of time at my own desk.

I’d noticed over the past few weeks that my eyes and even my face felt funny – strained and tired. I just kept telling myself that it was nothing, no big deal.

Then yesterday, I told myself, “Identify the problem! Problem: my eyes and facial muscles are tired.”

Having acknowledged the problem for the first time, I asked myself, “Why do I have this problem?”

I answered: “My eyes are strained because there’s too much light coming in from the window behind my computer monitors. I have a shade, and it’s down, but it’s letting too much light through.”

“Aha!” I thought proudly. “I’ve identified the problem! Too much light. So how will I solve this?” Well, I thought, I could buy a big piece of poster-board and prop it against the window, or I could hang a sheet over the window. Then I noticed – I have a blind on my window, as well as an inner shade! I’ve never used it, and I’d completely forgotten that it was there. This whole time, all I needed to do was to lower the blind.

Problem solved. I feel like an idiot, but my eyes feel a lot better.

* Through Twitter, I just discovered the blog by Gwen Bell and am having a lot of fun cruising through it. Lots of great material there.

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


Comments

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Gretchen RubinGretchen 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.

Now in Paperback


Buy the book
Sample Chapters Book Video
Free Audio Book Sample

Follow me

RSSHappiness Project Twitter updatesFacebook updates
Daily Email updatesMonthly Newsletter Email