The Happiness Project: Happiness Is...A Good Discussion About Happiness.

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’m a huge fan of book groups, and I’m in three, myself. In two of my book groups, we read children’s literature – the first group got so large that we had to close it, so I started another one. I’m also in a group where we read adult fiction or non-fiction. I think joining or starting a group is an excellent engine of happiness, and a book group is one of the most popular organizing principles for a group.

If I do say so myself, I think The Happiness Project would make a good choice for book groups. There’s a lot to talk about, whether or not you agree with my approach; in fact, if you disagree with my approach, you have even more to talk about.

If you’re in a book group and think that you’d encourage your group to choose The Happiness Project, I’d love to hear from you. You can’t know for sure, of course, until you actually see the book, and reading the book is very different from reading the blog, but if you’re a blog reader who wants to suggest the book for your book group, please drop me a note.

Why? I’m working on a reading-group guide, and I want to be able to send it to you. Also, I'll give away a certain number of free early copies of the book, when it’s ready, and I’ll choose randomly from these emails to send out what supplies I get.

This is on the honor system. If you're a member of a book group, and you sincerely believe you might be inclined to recommend the book to your group...
-- email me at gretchenrubin1 [at] gmail.com (don't forget the "1") with the message "book group"
-- include your name and address if you'd like to be eligible for a free book
-- if you're willing, I'd love to get a brief description of your group: how many members, what kind of books you read, etc. No particular reason, I'm just curious about book groups.

I feel a little sheepish about this post, because I don't want to seem to be doing too much self-promotion, but -- there it is!

* Yes, Delia is a good friend of mine, but I'd read her blog RealDelia -- "finding yourself in adulthood" -- even if I didn't know her.

* If you're interested in starting your own happiness project, check out the Happiness Project Toolbox. Lots of great tools there -- plus you can see what other people are doing, which is addictive.