The Happiness Project: True Rule: Rock the Boat.

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've started a feature -- the True Rules series. These are concrete lessons that come out of people's specific experiences. Whether you agree with these rules or not, they’re fun to consider.

I was very excited to have lunch with the brilliant Debbie Stier in her office at HarperStudio, which is part of my publishing house, HarperCollins. A few weeks ago, I’d been in a meeting she led, and I'd immediately realized that she was a treasure trove of information about how to use online tools – and specifically, how to use them as a writer.

I came away from the meeting with a long list of things to read and experiment with. One of Debbie’s suggestions was to “Use more video!” so I asked her if she’d give me a True Rule for my video series. Here’s her True Rule:

In case you can’t watch the video, Debbie says: “My True Rule is that you should rock the boat. Don’t let fear stop you, don’t let what other people might think stop you, just push it as far as you can go – rock the boat, take risks, and experiment.”

* Two friends of mine started a fantastic new blog, Drinking Diaries, "where women spill their drinking stories." I was pleased when they asked me to do a guest post -- I wrote about Why I stopped drinking alcohol (more or less).

* Check out my companion site, the Happiness Project Toolbox. Great tools to build your happiness -- and the chance to see what OTHER people are doing!

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