Book Tour

  • Toronto -- February 4, 2010
    Gretchen Rubin and Heather Reisman
    Indigo
    2300 Yonge St. (Yonge and Eglinton)
    Toronto, ON
    7:00 pm
  • New York City -- February 9, 2010
    92nd Street Y
    1395 Lexington Avenue
    New York, NY
    7:30 pm
    SOLD OUT
  • Houston, Texas – February 18, 2010
    Blue Willow Bookshop
    14532 Memorial Drive
    7:00 pm
  • Houston, Texas – February 19, 2010
    Mom 2.0 Conference
    9:30 am
  • New York City – February 24, 2010
    JCC
    334 Amsterdam Avenue (76th Street)
    7:30 pm
    Tickets: call 646-505-5708

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.”

"I Am Sorry I Went to Paris. Or Am I Sorry?"

Marycantwell“I am not much given to playing ‘If I had’ of ‘If I hadn’t,’ much preferring to stay with ‘It would have happened anyway.’ But that last is usually a lie, and I am not one to kid myself. I am sorry I went to Paris, because when I returned I was full of myself and starved for more of me. Or am I sorry? I do not know. I am mixed up. But I do know that there have been many years when I wished I could have walked into that little group at the airport, never to emerge again. I see them – the husband who looked like Montgomery Clift in his Harrods’ raincoat, the nurse in her white uniform, the little girl dancing in her hair ribbons, and the baby bulwarked in her diapers – and they haunt me, still there, still waiting at Kennedy.”
-- Mary Cantwell, Manhattan, When I Was Young

* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Comments

Wow. I love that!!

Ironically, I just bought Cantwell's memoir this weekend - based on the recommendation of a friend since I'm moving back to NYC. Great quote to pull from it!

I read that book at your recommendation and enjoyed it immensely - but that portion of it made me very sad! (Also read both of Sally Koslow's books at your recommendation - enjoyed them both.)

(Read Cantwell's book some time ago, so my memory may be hazy, but...) I recall it as the memoir of a woman whose "pursuit" (if you will) of, recognition of, even allowance for happiness was - at that time in her life, anyway - mighty tough going. A reminder that, for many of us, one's own happiness-project efforts are often pitched against powerful undertows.

Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog? Please come visit my site Glendale California Yellow Pages when you got time.

I usually don’t leave comments!!! Trust me! But I liked your blog…especially this post! Would you mind terribly if I put up a backlink from my site to your site? Please come visit my site Tacoma Washington Yellow Pages when you got time.

It was my great good fortune to work with Mary Cantwell at Mademoiselle Magazine--my first job out of college. Mary top-edited my writing, not always kindly, making notes such as "draperies, not drapes!" Her writing has long been an inspiration.

First, it comes to the ingenious design. At the very first sight of Tiffany earrings, I fell hopelessly in love with it. Though there are so many shinning jewelries around, this special tiffany apple earring makes itself stand out from others. True, from the name, you know, it is designed with the apple shape, giving us a different feeling, a little lively, never missing out elegance. It is simple yet stylish, only if you put it on, you will hate to put it down. What dose it remind you of, the alluring fruits in autumn? No matter how, it is just the masterpiece with the combination of art, visual design and the masterly craftsmanship.

Interesting and usefull post, thanks

Thank you for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbour were preparing to do some research about that. We got a good book on that matter from our local library and most books where not as influensive as your information. I am very glad to see such information which I was searching for a long time.This made very glad Smile

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Gretchen RubinGretchen 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.


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