The Happiness Project

A Fundamental Secret to Happiness? Get Enough Sleep.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

I’ve written before about my resolution to Get more sleep, and I’m bringing it up again, because I’m truly convinced that this is one of the first aspects of life to tackle when you start a happiness project.

It’s easy to become accustomed to being sleep-deprived, but it’s not good for you. Many researchers argue that not getting enough sleep has broad health consequences, such as raising your risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even obesity, but in addition to those, it has a profound effect on your happiness.

One study showed that a bad night’s sleep was one of the top two reasons for being in a bad mood at work (the other? Tight work deadlines). Another study suggested that getting one extra hour of sleep each night would do more for your daily happiness than getting a $60,000 raise.

But here’s another reason why I think sleep matters so much for happiness: exhaustion makes the mornings tougher.

The morning is a hard time for many people.

First, a lot of people try to exercise early in the morning. This is a great idea -- you check it off your list and get the mood boost all day long. My weight-training instructor told me, “I’ve noticed that people who exercise first thing are much more likely to stick to an exercise program. If you roll out of bed and exercise, you get it out of the way. If you try to do it later, you come up with excuses for yourself, or other things interfere.”

Second, a lot of people face a gruesome commute. A bad commute is a real happiness challenge, and one to which people don’t adapt. If you’re sleepy, you’re going to be crabby and inattentive, and that’s a bad combination in a driver.

Third, a lot of people have to get their kids off to school. This is why I need a lot of sleep. Every single morning tries my patience to the uttermost. If my big one isn’t complaining, my little one is whining. Remembering to put everything in the backpacks, picking out clothes, finding the right mittens, leaving on time…it’s hard, every day. A lot of my resolutions, such as Sing in the morning and Observe the evening tidy-up, are aimed at improving the morning experience. (Here are some tips for keeping school-day mornings cheery.)

I’ve also resolved to “Get up at 6:00 a.m.,” so I have an hour to get myself organized before the rest of my family wakes up. And what does this mean? It means I have to go to sleep earlier.

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of my friend Erin Doland’s excellent new book, Unclutter Your Life in One Week. It has lots of great information and tips, and I was quite struck by her observation:

“Experience has taught me that to get out of bed just fifteen minutes earlier each morning, most people need to go to bed thirty minutes earlier. To wake up and feel refreshed thirty minutes earlier in the morning requires going to bed a full hour earlier.”

I’d assumed this had just been my idiosyncratic experience, so I was surprised to see that someone else had found the same thing. Alas, I think this is absolutely true.

The fact is, I resent having to go to bed so early, just at the beginning of one of the most enjoyable parts of my day. I finally have an opportunity to read for fun, call my sister in Los Angeles, cruise the internet, or watch TV. Instead, I have to turn out the light.

It’s strange that turning off the light is so hard. You’d think, “What could take less effort than going to sleep?” and yet I find that it sometimes takes a lot of effort to put myself to bed, even when I’m actually feeling sleepy. It’s just so much fun to stay up -- or sometimes I feel too tired to take out my contacts.

Getting enough sleep really pays off, though. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or listless, or irritable, try getting more sleep for a week. That might help more than you expect.

What do you think? How much is your happiness affected by the amount of sleep you get?

* On Gimundo, I read about a fascinating study that suggests that being in a clean-smelling environment makes people behave in a more fair and generous way.

* If you’re in a book group and think you might choose The Happiness Project as a reading selection, please let me know. I’ll send you a discussion guide, plus I plan to give away some free advance copies of the book, and I’ll choose addresses from these emails.
--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 know a little about your group: how many members, what you read, etc. No particular reason, I’m just curious about book groups!

Five Great “Don’ts” of a Happiness Project.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Five great “don’ts” of a happiness project.

Several people have said to me, “When you’re making a resolution, it’s better not to say ‘No’ or ‘Don’t’ to yourself. You should keep it positive. Find ways to say 'yes'!”

I think there’s some merit to thinking about resolutions this way – but I don’t agree completely. First of all, sometimes it feels good to say “No” to yourself. For instance, I resolved No more drinking (mostly), and that resolution has made me much happier. (If you're giving something up, you might want to take the "Are you a moderator or an abstainer?" quiz.)

Also, sometimes following a “Don’t” can make you very happy. Here are the five great don’ts of my happiness project – admittedly, some of them are fairly controversial:

1. Don’t get organized.

2. Don’t use my self-control.

3. Don’t treat myself.

4. Don’t practice random acts of kindness.

5. Don’t try to keep that resolution.

My personal favorite is "Don't get organized." What do you think? Have you made a “don’t” resolution that has made you happier?

* A reader sent me the link to a very interesting post on the great blog The Simple Dollar: 15 things more important than money.

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Wednesday! This is the day when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
-- Link to a post on Twitter
-- Pre-order the book for a friend
-- Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.
(Note that various links in the comment box, just below, make some of these steps easier.)

Ask for Help: Want to Make a Short Video?

One of my surprisingly difficult happiness-project resolutions is to Ask for help – and now I’m asking.

The internet has changed a lot about publishing. There are many new ways to reach readers – and that means a lot of new tasks for writers. This can be daunting, at times, and I often remind myself of one of my most important happiness realizations: Novelty and challenge bring happiness.

One of the novel challenges facing me right now is the creation of a book trailer, which has been on my to-do list for, well, about eighteen months now. By a crazy lucky chance, (or another instance of the uncannily true Zen saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears"), my friend Maria Giacchino, of Little Jacket Video Productions, has just started making book trailers, and she’s done two great ones for two great books: for Abigail Pogrebin’s One and the Same and Deborah Copaken Kogan’s Hell Is Other Parents.

So now I'm working on my book trailer. In it, I’d love to include clips of readers talking about what happiness-project resolutions have worked in their own lives.

So I’m asking for your help.

If this is the kind of task that appeals to you (and for many of you, it won’t appeal one bit, I know, so read no further), and you’ve used a happiness-project resolution to happy result, please consider…

--shooting a quick video of yourself naming a resolution that has boosted your happiness, or some important realization you gained, from The Happiness Project. Remember, the entire trailer will be about one minute long, and we want to include many people, so say something very quick and soundbite-y. "The resolution to 'Make your bed' changed my life!" etc.

--posting the video to the Facebook Page so everyone can see it. In the middle of the page, you'll see the "Wall" box that says, "What's on your mind?" Below it are icons, one of which is a video camera. Click on that, and you'll get a prompt to upload or record a video. I THINK. Facebook seems different for everyone who uses it, so I THINK this is what you'll see. I THINK you should be able to do this without joining the Page, but if you don't see a likely way to do this, join the Page and maybe that will help. (I promise, this is not meant to be a sneaky way of getting you to join the Page! Sorry about that!) There should also be a "Video" tab across the top; you can use that, too.

--if I end up taking a clip from your video, I’ll be in touch with you to get a permission form. And I'll be ecstatically grateful.

Please do consider doing this! I would so appreciate it!

My happiness project has taught me “Novelty and challenge bring happiness.” Following that precept prompted me to add another happiness-project resolution, “Enjoy the fun of failure.” I’m worried that no one will post a single video, and I’ll feel like a loser. That’s the problem with novelty and challenge – they often come with anxiety, frustration, and…feeling like a loser. So I remind myself, “This is fun! Enjoy the FUN of failure.” If no one posts, that’s okay.

Happiness doesn’t always make me feel happy. A mystery.

* I've spent a lot of time over the past few days reading the blog To the Max -- "Take that, cerebral palsy!" "This blog is about parenting, extreme honesty, chocolate ice-cream and life with my little boy, Max, who had a stroke at birth and kicks butts." There was a great post yesterday: Is it wrong to make your child wear a Bed, Bath & Beyond shopping bag for Halloween?

* Gold star for people who shoot a video of themselves naming their favorite resolution!

A Lovely Family Tradition…Suggested by the Author of FIGHT CLUB?

Two of my happiness-project resolutions are Take time for projects and Enjoy this seasons and this time of life. These are family-directed resolutions, meant to make sure that I put the time and effort into holidays, family projects, and fun outings.

I came up with these resolutions because the year before my happiness project, Halloween came and went without us carving a pumpkin, and I was utterly appalled by myself. To my mind, that’s Mommy malpractice, even though my daughters didn’t seem to mind much. (Lesson learned: we bought and carved a pumpkin yesterday.)

Because of these resolutions, I’m always looking for fun and also manageable ways to do family projects or celebrate family traditions. For example, I love holiday breakfasts – an idea I lifted from a friend.

I just got a new idea from an unexpected source. I’m a raving Chuck Palahniuk fan, but I don’t turn to his novels for inspiration for lovely ways to celebrate traditions with my children. No, there’s a lot you can get from Fight Club and Choke and Survivor, but sweet family traditions aren’t there.

On the suggestion of a thoughtful reader, however, I picked up a copy of Palahniuk’s non-fiction essays, Stranger Than Fiction, and I was captivated by an idea I read about in “The People Can.” Palahniuk describes the lives of the crew of the Navy submarine the Louisiana, and he explains the tradition of Halfway Night.

“Before departure, the family of each man on board gives Chief of Boat Ken Biller a shoe-box-sized package, and on the night that marks the halfway point in the patrol, called Halfway Night, Biller distributes the boxes. Smith’s wife sends photos and beef jerky and a toy motorcycle to remind him of his own bike on shore. Greg Stone gets a pillowcase printed with a photograph of his wife, Kelley.”

I’m enchanted by the idea of “Halfway Night.” It seems like a great idea to adapt to any arduous situation, to something truly awful like chemotherapy, or just extremely tiresome, like studying for the bar exam.

I can’t think of something in my life right now that would lend itself to a Halfway Night, but I’m squirreling the idea away for the proper occasion.

Have you hit upon an tradition to ease a difficult situation? Have you tried something like Halfway Night?

* I spent a lot of time cruising around Parents Connect -- "we're not perfect, we're parents."

* If you're interested in launching a group for people who meet to do their happiness projects together, sign up for the starter-kit. More than 3,000 people have requested it. You might also like to check out the Facebook conversation for group leaders -- that's a good resource if you're trying to get started.

"When Happiness is Absent, We Do Everything to Possess It."

“We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.”
-- Epicurus

This statement is much more challenging and mysterious than it appears on first glance. What things really brings happiness? How do we pursue those things?

* My friend Abigail Pogrebin's book, One and the Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I've Learned about Everyone's Struggle to Be Singular, just came out. Her book trailer is terrific; the book sounds fascinating, even to a person like me who is not a twin, let alone an identical twin, and I've ordered my copy -- but also, I must admit that I could look at photos of identical twins for hours.

* 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.

A Secret to Happiness: Don’t Try to Keep That Resolution.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

One of my Secrets of Adulthood (cribbed from Niels Bohr) is “The opposite of a great truth is also true.” So whenever I’m very convinced that something is true, I ask myself, “Is the opposite also true?”

The main strategy for my happiness project is to make and keep resolutions. I’ve made dozens, maybe hundreds of resolutions, and I have Resolutions Chart where I score myself on the most important resolutions. I constantly remind myself, “It’s important to keep that resolution! It will make me happier!” and usually it does.

But I have at least one resolution that I just can’t seem to keep, and I’ve decided to resolve to do just the opposite, to “Give up that resolution.”

I’m giving up my long-standing, often-repeated resolution to “Entertain more.” Fact is, I’ve never really committed to that resolution: I never broke the goal down into steps that I could follow and pushed myself to keep them. Well, why not? Why was I able to keep resolutions like Stop gossiping and Read more and Don’t expect praise or appreciation, but not this one?

I want to entertain more, but clearly, I also do NOT want to entertain more. Finally I realized – I need to give up this resolution for a while.

If I’m honest with myself, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. The Happiness Project book is finally about to hit the shelves, and that means a lot of work – not just writing work, which I’m used to, but other kinds of work. My children need a lot of attention. My husband has been traveling a fair amount. When I have some spare time, I want to just hang around the apartment and read; I don’t want another to-do list, even for something fun. Some people like party errands (flowers, food, fixing up the house, figuring out whom to invite), but I don’t.

So I’ve decided to abandon that resolution for a while.

Starting an exercise routine. Learning Italian. Cleaning the basement. We all have longstanding resolutions hanging over our heads – resolutions that we want to keep, but we don’t really make much progress towards, and which can therefore give us a feeling of powerlessness or failure. As important as it is to try to keep resolutions, sometimes you need to give up a resolution.

Sometimes, too, I think a resolution can block you. You don’t have any nice clothes because you want to lose weight. You don’t read any novels because you’ve promised yourself to read War and Peace. Letting go of one resolution might make it easier to keep other resolutions.

The thing is, I know if I’d keep the resolution to “Entertain more,” it would make me happier. But I’m going to admit to myself how happy it will make me not to keep that resolution.

How about you? Have you ever boosted your happiness when you gave up a resolution?

* I loved watching this video of starlings' flight patterns.

* Zoikes! More than a week has gone by since I mentioned the fact that The Happiness Project is available for pre-order! Act now! If you need any convincing, look here and here.

Take a Look at Some Other Happiness Projects. It's Not Just Me!

One of the most exciting things about working on my happiness project is seeing other people start their own happiness projects.

I get a real kick from seeing these happiness-project blogs, where people have taken my basic idea and run with it themselves -- taking the concept in so many different directions. Every happiness project is different; every one is fascinating. Check these blogs out yourself:

If you have a blog that's not on this list, please add yours to this simple form, and your blog's name and URL will be added to the chart. That way, all of us can see what you're doing.

If you'd like to start a happiness project, but don't want to do it using a blog, here are some ideas for getting started. Happiness projects for everyone!

* How can I resist a column on Money & Happiness? I can't, so I'm a big fan of Laura Rowley's writing Yahoo! Finance.

* For more discussion about happiness, join the Facebook Page. Lots of people, lots of fascinating insights and conversation.

Eight Excellent Tips for Living that My Parents Gave Me.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Eight excellent tips for living my parents gave me.

My mother:
--“Stay calm.” My mother probably reminds of this three or four times each time I see her. I really need this advice. Every day.
--“The things that go wrong often make the best memories.” My mother told me this when we were getting ready for my wedding. It's a very good thing to keep in mind, because it's absolutely true, and it can also help you laugh at a bad situation while it's happening.
--"You like to have a few things that you really like, instead of lots of choices." Okay, this advice might not be widely applicable, but it was a huge revelation to me about my own nature. My mother made this comment in the context of clothes, but it's true in many areas of my life.
--“That's so wonderful! Be grateful, because you worked hard for what you got, and you deserved it, but others also worked hard, and people don’t always get what they deserve.” My mother made this observation when I called home to report that I'd been elected the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. I repeated her remark to a friend, who thought it sounded like a little unenthusiastic, but in fact, it was reassuring, especially in the long run. Because it's TRUE. You don't always get what you deserve, even when you work hard, and my mother's observation has been very comforting to me in other circumstances, when things didn't go my way.

My father:
--“If you’re willing to take the blame, people will give you the responsibility.” This was perhaps the best advice for the workplace I ever got.
--“Energy.” Very true. The first chapter of The Happiness Project is devoted to energy. (Here are nine tips for giving yourself an energy boost in the next ten minutes.)
--“Enjoy the process.” If you can enjoy the process, you are less concerned about outcomes. That's a big help in the world.
--“All you have to do is put on your running shoes and let the front door shut behind you.” Good advice for all couch potatoes trying to pick up an exercise habit. Just do that much! That counts!

My parents never gave me relationship advice or weighed in on my boyfriends (true, I only had two real boyfriends, one of whom I married, but I'm sure it was hard to resist nevertheless).

However, once when I was home for vacation, both of my parents remarked on the requirements of a happy relationship. Maybe they'd had a conversation between themselves, which was why it was on their minds. Anyway, it was so unusual for them to make this kind of remark that both statements made a big impression on me:
--My mother said: “In a relationship, it’s important that a person is kind, because eventually, if he’s not kind to other people, he won’t be kind to you.”
--My father said: “In a relationship, it’s important that a person be able to have fun, because you’re not going to have a happy life with someone who can’t have fun.”

Have you received any great advice from your parents?

* A thoughtful reader sent me the link to a great Boston Globe article she wrote: Will He Hold Your Purse? "As a breast cancer doctor, I've learned how to spot a devoted husband -- a skill I try to share with my single and searching girlfriends."

* It’s Word-of-mouth Wednesday, the day when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
-- Link to a post on Twitter
-- Pre-order the book for a friend
-- Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.
(Note that links in the comment box, just below, make some of these steps easier.)

"Without Attention, We Cannot Go Deeply in Thought or Relations."

For years, I’ve done a lot of my writing at the wonderful New York Society Library (though lately I’ve been tethered to the internet and my three monitors at home). Because the rule of silence in the study room there is so strictly enforced, for a long time I saw but never spoke to one of my fellow writers -- but finally, I actually did meet Maggie Jackson.

She’s the author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, which comes out in paperback today. It’s a fascinating examination of the consequences of all the technology we use – on learning, relationships, and our inner lives. Maggie Jackson emphasizes the importance of the ability to pay attention.

Because the issues she discusses have such clear consequences for happiness, I was curious to hear her answers to these questions.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Maggie: Being alone with my books and thoughts. Pursuing the trail of a thorny research question. Being with my family and friends: sharing a meal, swimming or walking at the ocean, exploring a new place. Many, many simple things make me content - teatime, museum-hopping, bicycling, reading in an old library, playing in the snow.

What do you know now about happiness that you didn’t when you were 18?
My dad was the king of simple pleasures. He was not a tormented soul. I, on the other hand, was a moody, impatient kid who tried to do too much and move too fast. I could see but not really appreciate my dad’s view of the world when I was young. But he must have left his mark on me, because I’ve come to realize that life isn’t all about the tallest peaks or fastest races, and it’s certainly not about our possessions, titles, or money. Life’s meaning unfolds in both the “big moments” and the detours and pauses and tiny moments of serendipity. Being in the present, along with being present for others, is crucial. I used to have one gear: high. But now I realize that happiness comes from complicated rhythms. And it comes and goes. It’s not a state of being that once reached, sticks.

Is there a link between attention and happiness?
Yes. Being able to focus is something that most people value instinctively. I can’t recall a great thinker or creator or leader - from Marie Curie to Picasso to Barack Obama – who doesn’t have enormous powers of concentration. As a young adult, I understood unthinkingly that attention is the key to getting things done. But until I began researching the fate of attention in our distracted society, I didn’t really realize the complexity or importance of this human faculty. Attention is a key to learning, memory, problem-solving, engagement, intimacy and creativity – all that we strive for today. Attention is now considered a tripartite capacity made up of focus, or the spotlight of the mind; alerting or wakefulness; and executive attention, or the ability to plan, envision, judge. Without attention – which derives from the Latin for ‘stretch toward’ – we cannot go deeply in thought and relations. As a result, attention is our most essential stepping stone to happiness. And controlling our powers of attention is crucial to steering our fate.

Is there anything that people often do or say that adds or detracts from their happiness?
Throughout history, humans have been programmed to take the easy way out, as a means of conserving energy and lowering risks. Take the short-cut to the fishing hole. Sow the plants that need less care. Set a trap rather than track an animal. Our ability to plan ahead and use technology allows us to survive, with less physical effort. But this instinct does us a disservice in a digital, cognitive age. Television, fast food, quick transport and even instant social connectivity give us a world built on the quick and the instant. The pendulum begins to swing too far in the direction of ease and passivity. The result is all too often anxiety, depression, poor health. The trick is not to forget our physicality, our limitations and the beauty of effort, both in the biological and cognitive realms. A life too easy or escapable quickly becomes meaningless.

Do you work at being happy?
No, I work on pursuing my dreams and battling my demons. Happiness follows.

* Lisa Takeuchi Cullen's Wasabi Mama is a "sinus-clearing rant on parenting, work, media, and entertainment" -- many of my favorite subjects, so I love a visit there.

* If you’re in a book group and think you might choose The Happiness Project as a reading selection, please let me know. I’ll send you a discussion guide, plus I plan to give away some free advance copies of the book, and I’ll choose addreses from these emails.
--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 know a little about your group: how many members, what you read, etc. No particular reason, I’m just curious about book groups!

Who's in a Starring Role, Who's in a Walk-On Role? All of Us.

Years ago, my husband and I fixed up a very close friend with another friend. They fell in love, it was great. But within a few years, he got sick. She stood by him through it all. Then he died. It was awful. And it was very, very hard on our friend.

It was a sad situation for many reasons. As the years passed, one thing continued to bother me: I felt we had put a beloved friend in the path to sorrow. It had been inadvertent, and well-intentioned, but still, we had brought all this pain into our good friend’s life.

I mentioned this to my husband, and he said something that completely changed my thinking. He said, “Yes, it was very hard on her. But think how much better it was for him.”

This thought, obvious as it is, had never occurred to me. I realized – how often I make this error. I was acting as though my friend were the main character of this story! That she was the one who really mattered. And I saw that I make this mistake all the time. I’m the MOST main character of course, and then the people close to me, and so on…with some people just appearing as extras or in walk-on roles.

But that’s not true. Everyone is a main character. And everyone is a minor character. And as I started thinking about this, I realized that many of my favorite happiness passages concerned exactly this shift: someone re-interpreting a situation, by understanding how different circumstance would seem if someone else were placed in the starring role.

Each has haunted me, but only now do I see what theme links them together.

*

Reading Flannery O’Connor’s letters led me to the extraordinary book, A Memoir of Mary Ann, a memoir about a little girl, Mary Ann, who lived with a gruesome tumor on her face before dying of cancer, written by the nuns with whom she lived for several years in a free cancer-treatment home.

Near the end of Mary Ann’s life, a five-month-old baby, Stephanie, was brought to the cancer home. Stephanie’s parents were crushed at the thought of leaving their baby there.

The nuns relate that for years, Mary Ann had longed for a baby to take care of. When Stephanie arrived, she said shyly to the baby’s mother, “I didn’t pray for a baby to be sick, but I prayed that if a baby was sick, it would come here.”

Later, the mother wrote the nuns, “I had accepted the hurt [my child’s affliction] brought me, but I had not accepted the fact that I had to give her up. My husband was suffering too and my attitude…was not helping much. Mary Ann’s words opened my understanding. Stephanie was needed…this child [Mary Ann] with the bandaged face and a heart full of love needed her…God had given me a good husband, six beautiful children. This last child was probably the most special of them all, destined for something I knew nothing about.”

*

In Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, he relates a story from his psychiatric practice, when an elderly man, distraught with grief over the death of his wife two years before, came to him.

Frankl asked, “What would have happened…if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?”

The man answered, “Oh, for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!”

Frankl responded, “You see…such a suffering has been spared to her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering—to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.”

The man left the office, comforted. Frankl observed, “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

*

Here’s an example from children’s literature. In Rick Riordan’s novel, The Sea of Monsters, the hero of the story, thirteen-year-old Percy Jackson (who happens to be the son of the sea god Poseidon and a mortal woman), has taken Tyson, a huge, awkward boy who seems to be learning-disabled, with a misshapen face, under his wing. They go to high school together, but Percy isn’t exactly sure why he’s bothering to protect Tyson and drag him along on his Olympian adventures.

He keeps Tyson with him, though, and at the end of the book, Percy learns that Tyson is also a son of Poseidon, and he’s a Cyclops, which is why his face looks wrong (he only has one eye).

Tyson says to Percy, “Poseidon did take care for me after all…I prayed to Daddy for help…He sent me a brother.”

Ah! we see. Percy thought that Tyson was tagging along with him, but in fact, he was a supporting character in Tyson's adventure.

*

It’s a very unsettling and interesting exercise to think about the people in my life and to imagine myself in a minor, supporting role. How do I fit into their fates? Am I helping?

* I always find interesting things at LifeDev, "empowering creative people." Good stuff.

* I'm trying to figure out the level of interest for a book tour. If I did a book event in your town, and you'd come, it would be very helpful if you'd either post a comment below or drop me an email at grubin[at]gretchenrubin[dot com]. (Sorry about the weird format – trying to thwart spammers). Just write "tour" in the subject line, and be sure to include the name of your city! Thanks very much to all the people who already answered; the information is enormously helpful.