The Happiness Project: Which Websites and Blogs Boost Your Happiness?

The Happiness Project

I’m working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, a memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy--from Aristotle to Martin Seligman to Thoreau to Oprah. On this daily blog, I recount my adventures as I grapple with the challenge of being happier. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will hit the shelves in December 2009 (Harper).

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.”

On the Inspiration Board of the Happiness Project Toolbox, people have posted a staggeringly interesting array of happiness-related quotations, images, book suggestions, and website recommendations.

It seems like a good idea to create a place here where people can shine a spotlight on happiness-boosting blogs and websites. Voila, here's a chart. To suggest one, list your favorite here! And don't feel shy about adding yourself to the chart.

There is such a treasure trove of material out there; it's hard to keep up with all the great sites to visit. I hope this list will be a good resource.

* I'm a huge fan of the writer Daniel Pink, so was very interested to watch his TED talk on motivation. I can't wait to get my hands on his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us -- but will have to wait until it comes out in December. I may be slightly distracted at that point, because my book hits the shelves on the very same day. What a coincidence.

* Speaking of the Happiness Project Toolbox -- check it out! It has eight free tools to help you launch and track your own happiness project.