The Happiness Project

Happiness: Summing Up a Big Idea in a Short Sentence.

Although it may seem reductive, I think people grasp and remember great truths better when they’re snappily summed up. I love epigrams, aperçus, apothegms, and aphorisms of all sorts, and I try to to sum up my happiness conclusions in catchy, yet of course profound, axioms.

My greatest success so far: The days are long, but the years are short. That short sentence says it all. (If you haven’t seen my one-minute video, check it out.)

I was thinking about my Second Splendid Truth. Just getting it down to these two statements took enormous effort on my part. It sounds so simple, but there is a circularity to these ideas that confused me for a long time:
One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make someone else happy;
One of the best ways to make someone else happy is to be happy yourself.

So true, so true. But not very snappy.

But yesterday I hit on this!
Happy people make people happy.
This simple language almost makes this point sound trivial, but the epigram actually conveys what I think is one of the most important arguments about happiness -- and it also refutes pernicious Happiness Myth #1.

Also...
Making people happy makes people happy.
Again, the language is simple, but the argument is one made throughout the ages by great philosophers, religious readers, and scientists.

I especially like the first one. Zoikes, I get a ridiculous amount of pleasure from inventing these epigrams.

In other happy news: The Happiness Project got a mention in the new issue of Vanity Fair magazine, in the “FanFair” section. Yippee! (Oh, sorry, did I forget to mention that my book is coming out next month?) In case you want to run right out to see it, it’s in the issue that has Robert Pattinson on the cover – very appropriate because yes, I am going to see New Moon on opening night.

* I was fascinated by this post by Christine Whelan, Self-Help Isn’t for Dummies. According to her research, and contrary to what some folks assume, people who tend to buy self-help books are people who already have a fair measure of self-control, and want even more.

* 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!

Which Websites and Blogs Boost Your Happiness?

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.

A Secret to Happiness That I Overlooked -- Until Now.

A significant factor in happiness is the hedonic treadmill, or hedonic adaptation.

People are adaptable. We quickly adjust to a new life circumstance—for better or worse—and consider it normal. Although this helps us when our situation worsens, it means that when circumstances improve, we soon become hardened to new comforts or privileges. Scoring air-conditioning, a bigger house, or a fancy title gives us only a brief boost in happiness before we start to take it for granted. As Aldous Huxley wrote, “Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.” That’s the hedonic treadmill.

One cure for this “hedonic treadmill” is deprivation. Deny yourself something, and your pleasure in it will be re-activated when the denial stops.

I’m being reminded of this truth the tough way, through the painful deprivation of some small things I’ve taken for granted for years, and never realized how much they contributed to my happiness…

My contact lenses.

For the past month, I’ve had a particularly stubborn case of viral conjunctivitis, and although my eyes don’t hurt or itch (for which I am very grateful), they're bloodshot and tear constantly. My doctor told me I’d recover more quickly if I didn’t wear my lenses.

Boy, I didn’t realize how much my contact lenses added to my base level of daily happiness. First, my glasses frames dig into my head behind my ears, and that hurts and gives me a headache. Second, my glasses are about fifteen years old, and I look goofy in them (having bloodshot, watery eyes isn't improving my looks, either). Third and most important, I just can’t see as well with my glasses. I’m legally blind – extremely near-sighted – and glasses just don’t work as well as contact lenses. (An eye doctor once told me, “Your vision is so corrected that you’ll see everything slightly smaller than it actually is,” a puzzling statement that sounds like the opening of a Steve Wright routine.) And somehow, not seeing clearly makes me feel like I’m not thinking clearly.

Ah, contacts! How I took them for granted. How happy I’ll be to wear them again. So often, I complained to myself about the chore of putting them in and taking them out, of visiting the drugstore to buy the two kinds of solution I need (this is tough for me, as an under-buyer), of having to be careful not to rip or lose them. I won’t be complaining again for a long time.

Deprivation is one of the most effective, although unenjoyable, cures for the hedonic treadmill.

* Oh my goodness, the brilliant Fred Wilson of A VC called me a blog star! That makes me very HAPPY.

* 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.

Have You Ever Experienced Split-Second-Aging?

Yesterday, I got my feeling of split-second-aging.

While I was riding on the subway, for no particular reason, I felt some odometer click over, and I became older. I felt it happen. I crossed some invisible border, and now some things seem closer and clearer and more important, and other things, further away.

I’ve had this feeling of unexpected split-second-aging before, and I’ve also failed to feel it, when I expected to feel it. The night I got married, for example, I remember saying to my husband of a few hours, “I thought I’d feel different, but I feel the same. Do you feel different?” He didn’t feel any different, either.

Having a baby, too. I felt a huge range of new emotions and concerns, but I didn’t feel any older or more mature. Same old me.

But I remember feeling split-second-aging when my husband had knee surgery. I was sitting in the waiting room with my mother-in-law and father-in-law, waiting for him to regain consciousness, when the doctor came in to give us the update. (Never have I felt such love for my father-in-law as when he said, nicely but sternly, “Doctor, we want to manage this situation for no pain.”) It wasn’t a dangerous operation, but suddenly I knew that I’d leave that hospital a lot older than I’d come in.

But sometimes split-second-aging feels good. Several years ago, my mother, sister, and I organized a surprise party for my father in my apartment, and the oversized flower arrangement made a big impression on my four-year-old. When a babysitter arrived to watch her while the party was going on, I overheard my daughter explain in a soft voice, “My mommy is having a flower party.”

Suddenly, I felt like the the omnipotent Mommy of my own childhood, or Mrs. Dalloway. I felt grown-up in a way I never had before -- in a pleasing way.

The passage of time is one of the great currents of life that affect happiness. Split-second-aging isn’t a happy feeling or an unhappy feeling, but it is a weighty feeling.

Do you know what I’m talking about? Am I the only one who has experienced split-second-aging?

* I can’t get over how nice people are being about my forthcoming book – Karl over at the great blog Work Happy Now! wrote an incredibly generous post.

* Speaking of people being helpful and nice, if you’d like to volunteer to help me from time to time with The Happiness Project, you can sign up here. Super-Fans, THANKS again for all your help.

Dracula's Bram Stoker Interviews Churchill? About Happiness?

I find Winston Churchill inexhaustibly fascinating, which is why I wrote his biography, so I was pleased – and surprised – to find, as an Appendix to my Penguin Classics copy of Bram Stoker’s legendary novel, Dracula, the transcript of an interview Stoker did with Churchill in 1908. At that point, Stoker was trying to make it as a journalist, and the 34-year-old Churchill was British Under Secretary for the Colonies.

One of the striking things about Churchill is that he met the most astonishing range of people – everyone from Coco Chanel to Mark Twain to Greta Garbo to Billy Graham to Buffalo Bill. In Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, I include a list of many of the people he met, and I wish I’d known to add Bram Stoker’s name. What a strange combo.

In the interview, I was also particularly interested to see Churchill giving his view on happiness.

Churchill observed to Stoker, “A man must choose his own way of life, and…it is only by following out one’s own bent that there can be the really harmonious life.” [This is EXACTLY what I mean by my First Commandment, to Be Gretchen].

When Stoker asked what exactly he meant by that, Churchill continued, “Harmonious life. A life when a man’s work is also his pleasure and vice versa. That conjunction, joined with a buoyant temperament, makes the best of worldly gifts.”

“Why buoyant temperament? I merely ask for information.”

“Simply because it implies a lot of other things: good health and strength, for instance. The great majority of human beings have to work the greater part of the day, and then amuse themselves afterwards – if they are not too tired. But the lucky few derive their keenest interest and enjoyment not from any contrast between business and idle hours – but from the work itself. But certainly physical health has a good deal to do with it.”

Churchill is talking about something bigger than physical energy, but it's true that having lots of energy helps boost happiness. Life just seems more manageable, and it's easier to do the things -- like exercise, make plans with other people, work on projects -- that support happiness.

Studies show that you’re more likely to feel good about yourself when you feel energetic, and being considered an “energizer” makes you far more likely to win a positive work evaluation.

Harmonious life and a buoyant temperament -- yes, that sounds like a good recipe for a happy life. It's not easy to do much about your inborn temperament; we probably have a lot more influence over creating a harmonious life.

Ah, Churchill! Now I must go re-read some of my favorite bits of Their Finest Hour.

* The nice folks at Happier.com have officially launched. Lots of great tools and test there to measure, track, and improve your happiness.

* 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.

Watch Me on CBS News Talking about Quick Ways to Boost Happiness.

I can never bear to see myself on video, so I haven't watched this myself, but I had a lot of fun talking about "tried and tested ways to find happiness" on the CBS News show "Up to the Minute." I talk about the simple, everyday kinds of things that can boost happiness.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Sheesh.

* In case watching the interview makes you think, "Holy cow, I better make sure I order Gretchen's book right this minute!" here's the pre-order link.

We Should All Listen to Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs: "I'm very happy to be here today with you all. As some of you know about 5 months ago I had a liver transplant, so I now have the liver of a mid-20's person who died in a car crash. I wouldn't be here without such generosity. I hope all of us can be as generous and become organ donors."

If you support organ donation, be sure to let people know. Tell your family you want to be an organ donor. Sign the registry. Happiness is...living your values.

* Check out the Happiness Project Toolbox-- fun ways to track your happiness project.

Identify the Problem: I Need a Desk.

One of the biggest surprises of my happiness project has been the extraordinary effectiveness of my Eighth Commandment: Identify the problem.

As strange as it sounds, I’ve learned that often I’ll suffer an unhappy situation without asking myself what the true problem is, or taking any real steps to try to solve it. Instead, I suffer a vague sense of discomfort, without being prompted into action.

My solution to this? To press myself to identify the problem. It’s a lot easier to solve a problem once I know what it is.

For example, I love coming home to Kansas City. We have a million things to do while we’re here, always the same list: Worlds of Fun, Winstead’s, Arthur Bryant’s, Rainy Day Books, Kaleidoscope, Topsy’s, etc. But often I need to do a little work, too (like post to my blog). My work as a writer has changed. I used to write on my laptop, on my own schedule, with no one to answer to for two or three years at a stretch. Now I feel a more constant need to report for duty. I love my new tasks (blog, Twitter, Facebook, monthly newsletter, etc.), but they demand a different rhythm of work.

For the past few years, when in Kansas City, I found myself feeling anxious and uncomfortable about this need to work.

For this visit, I took the crucial step. While on the plane, I asked myself, “What’s the problem?” It turns out that the problem isn’t that I can’t manage to take a break from family togetherness or that it ruins my fun to do a little work amid a vacation (in fact, I’ve found, a little work can make vacation more fun).

When I thought about it, I realized the problem was that in my parents’ place, there’s no desk. They have a lot of beautiful furniture, but nothing desk-like. They keep their own laptop on a shelf in the kitchen, and when they need to it, they put it on the kitchen table. Right in the middle of the action. The constant distractions and interruptions kept me on edge. Even when no one was wandering through the kitchen, it felt as though someone would pop in at any minute. It’s hard for me to concentrate in these circumstances.

Having identified the problem, I took a second crucial step. About an hour after the girls and I arrived in Kansas City, I mentioned to my mother, “You know what would make the guest room a lot more user-friendly? A desk.” I didn’t want to seem critical or fault-finding, but it was true that a desk would make a big difference.

My mother said, “Well, I haven’t seen a desk that would be right for that room, but I need a card table anyway, so I’ll go ahead and get it so you can use it.” Within six hours of my comment, my mother had picked up a card table at Target (the platonic ideal of a card table, exactly how you picture it and for $29), and now I’m typing on it, tucked away in a quiet corner.

Identify the problem! Why is this so hard? It’s a bit counter-intuitive that thinking about a source of unhappiness can actually be a happiness booster. It seems more likely that I’d do better to put up with a vague sense of uneasiness rather than shine a spotlight on it. And probably in some situations, that is better. But so often, I’ve found, “Identifying the problem” shows a possible way to solve it.

Now if I could only get my wireless mouse to connect...

* Did I mention that my book is available for pre-order? Yes, I’m pretty sure I did. But here I go again! Order early and often.

Bob Dylan Helps Me Recognize A Paradox of Happiness.

As I’ve thought about happiness, I’ve been struck by the many paradoxes of happiness. I want to Be Gretchen and accept myself, and I also want to perfect my nature. I want to think about myself, so I can forget myself. I want to lighten up, but also take myself more seriously.

I’ve discovered another paradox of happiness, and it’s one of the most important: I want to create my own independent happiness, apart from other people, so I can connect with other people.

This paradox started to become clear to me as I reflected on a haunting passage from Bob Dylan’s strange, brilliant memoir, Chronicles: Volume One. He wrote: “I looked at the menu, then I looked at my wife. The one thing about her that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She’s always had her own built-in happiness.”

This is what I’m striving for – to have my own “built-in happiness.” An emotional self-sufficiency. Not to depend on other people to boost me up, or to let them drag me down.

However, it’s true that ancient philosophers and modern scientists agree that a key – perhaps the key – to happiness is strong relationships. Other people matter to our happiness. If you have five or more friends with whom to discuss an important matter, you’re far more likely to describe yourself as “very happy.” Having strong relationships lengthens life (even more than quitting smoking!) and cuts the risk of depression. Even a brief interaction with another person tends to boost your mood – this is true for introverts as well as extroverts.

And when we’re with other people, we affect each other’s happiness. Emotional contagion describes the fact that we “catch” good moods and bad moods from each other (unfortunately, bad moods are more contagious than good moods). Married people are very affected by each other’s happiness; a thirty percent increase in one spouse’s happiness boosts the other spouse’s happiness, while a drop in one spouse’s happiness drags down the other.

But more and more, I’ve been trying to resist emotional contagion, and also the impulse to allow someone or something – most often, my husband, my children, or my work – to have a big impact on my happiness. I try to carry my own atmosphere of happiness with me. As Goethe said, "I am the decisive element...It is my daily mood that makes the weather."

This paradox leads me back, yet again, to the Second Splendid Truth:

One of the best ways to make yourself happy is
to make other people happy.

One of the best ways to make other people happy is
to be happy yourself.

By working to maintain my own “built-in happiness,” I’ll be better able to help the people around me to be happy. My happiness will lift them up. Plus I won’t be a happiness vampire who sucks happy energy from other people or who craves a life-blood of praise, affirmation, or reassurance to support my happiness. (Ah, my struggle to rise above gold stars continues.)

But to have my own “built-in happiness” is a challenge. Have you found any good ways to keep yourself emotionally self-sufficient, without isolating yourself?

* This is FABULOUS: a reporter for the TucsonCitizen.com is launching a Tucscon happiness-project group on that website. I can't wait to see how it goes.

* Speaking of happiness-project groups, if you'd like to start a group, sign up here to get your starter-kit.

A Problem in Happiness: Drift.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the problem of drift in happiness. Drift is the decision you make by not deciding, or by making a decision that unleashes consequences for which you don’t take responsibility. (“Drift” isn’t an actual psychological term, like situation evocation or emotional contagion; it’s just a word that I use).

I fear drift. Drift feels small, but once unleashed, drift is a powerful, often almost unstoppable, force.

An engaged friend couldn’t have made it more plain that she didn’t want to get married. I asked her, “Imagine that something happened, and you couldn’t get married next month. Your fiancé absolutely had to move to China for a year, alone, or you had to have a big operation. How would you feel?” “Relieved,” she said. And yet she went through with the wedding, and got divorced a year later.

I drifted into law school. I didn’t know what else I wanted to do, it seemed like a legitimate, useful way to spend a few years, it would keep my options open…I didn’t really think much about the decision. As it turns out, I’m very glad I went to law school – drift sometimes does lead to a happy result, which contributes to its dangerous appeal – but I didn’t approach law school mindfully. And many, many people who go to law school are not happy they went.

Just taking one drifting step can you set you in a course that’s very hard to stop. In my case, I drifted into taking the LSAT (the law-school application test). “Why not, might as well, could come in handy, maybe I’ll be glad I did,” etc. This is a good example of the fact that drifting doesn’t always mean taking the easier course; it was a lot of trouble to prepare and take the LSAT, but it was still drift.

Some situations look like drift but aren’t. You may be following a pathless path -- and that's fine, if that's what you intend to do. Or you may have to choose between multiple courses, with their pros and cons, and you can’t decide which you want, and while you’re deciding, life continues rolling along. This isn’t drift, because you’re actively weighing your options. Sometimes, it’s helpful to postpone making a decision, either because you get more information or because your own preferences reveal themselves. However, if this goes on too long – and it’s hard to know what’s too long – it can become drift.

The tricky thing about drift is that people rarely want to admit to themselves that they’re drifting. So what’s a good way to catch yourself in drift? I tried to make a list of warning signs for myself:

-- Thinking “This situation can’t go on,” but then it does go on.
-- Complaining a lot about a situation without working to find ways to make it better.
-- Hoping that some catastrophe or upheaval will arise to blow up a situation, e.g., fantasizing that you’ll break your leg or be transferred to another city.
-- Feeling that other people or processes are moving events forward, and you’re being passively carried along.
-- Getting the urge to do or have something because the people around you are doing it or want it. One of my Secrets of Adulthood is "Just because something is fun for someone else doesn’t mean it’s fun for you – and vice versa."

Have you ever caught yourself in drift? What are some other warning signs?

* I always find a lot of great material to read at Beyond Blue, a blog about "a spiritual journey to mental health," and I was interested in a recent post, Depression happens to successful people.

* 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.