The Happiness Project: What I Learned about Happiness at the SXSW Conference.

The Happiness Project

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

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.”

I just got back to New York City; I was out of town for a few days at the SXSW conference in Austin. This is one of the biggest conferences for bloggers, and I’d never been, so I decided to take the plunge this year and go.

It was a lot of fun, and a very valuable experience, and from a happiness-project perspective, it reminded me of several things:

-- Novelty and challenge boost happiness. Going to a new city, meeting a lot of new people, being in a different environment, all boosted my happiness. Along the same lines…

-- An atmosphere of growth brings happiness. I learned a lot at the conference, both from the official panels and from the unofficial conversations I had, and that gave me a feeling of intellectual excitement and growth.

-- Taking a break from a common thing can make it seem like a treat. When I got home, just having a kitchen again felt very exciting.

-- Used right, technology helps build relationships. Although it might seem that technology pushes people apart, or allows them to avoid interacting, actually people use technology to try to connect. Every single person at the conference was eagerly trying to meet in person the people they already knew well on-line.

-- Sleep is important to happiness. Away from my children and my usual schedule, I got more sleep than usual, and I could really feel the difference in my energy level -- and I make a big effort to get a lot of sleep, as it is.

One of my ongoing happiness-project challenges is to fight my instinct to say dismissively, “Well, doing X or Y might be useful or fun, but it would be a big hassle, and it would take a lot of time, and probably cost a fair amount, and maybe it would be a big waste.” In fact, I’m always glad when I push myself to try something new. I debated a long time about whether to go to the conference, but I'm very HAPPY that I did.

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It was terrific to meet up with a lot of my fellow bloggers and to hear others speak. Some highlights: Communicatrix, Tony Hsieh, The Fluent Self, Chris Brogan, Career Renegade, IttyBix, Work Happy Now, Escape from Cubicle Nation, Wine Library TV/Gary Vaynerchuk, Shama Hyder, Penelope Trunk, David Eckoff.

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If you want to partake in the SXSW vibe even though you'd never go, start using Twitter.

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