The Happiness Project

To Be Happier, Write Your Own Set of Personal Commandments.

One of the most challenging—and most helpful and fun—tasks that I've done as part of my Happiness Project is to write my Twelve Personal Commandments. These aren't specific resolutions, like make my bed, but the overarching principles by which I try to live my life.

It took me several months to come up with this list, and it has been very useful for me to have them identified clearly in my mind. It's a creative way of distilling core values.

To get you started as you think about your own commandments, here are my Twelve Commandments:

1. Be Gretchen.
2. Let it go.
3. Act the way I want to feel.
4. Do it now.
5. Be polite and be fair.
6. Enjoy the process.
7. Spend out. (This is probably the most enigmatic of my commandments.)
8. Identify the problem.
9. Lighten up.
10. Do what ought to be done.
11. No calculation.
12. There is only love.

So how do you come up with your own list?

Consider phrases that have stuck with you. When I look at my Twelve Commandments, I realize that five of them are actually quotations from other people. My father repeatedly reminds me to “Enjoy the process.” A respected boss told me to “Be polite and be fair.” A good friend told me that she’d decided that “There is only love” in her heart for a difficult person. “No calculation” is a paraphrase of my spiritual master St. Therese (“When one loves, one does not calculate”), and “Act the way I want to feel” is a paraphrase of William James.

Aim high and fight the urge to be too comprehensive. I’ve found that my commandments help me most when I review them at least daily, to keep them fresh in my mind, and to do this, it helps to keep the list short and snappy. I suspect that Twelve Commandments is too much. Maybe I only need two, “Be Gretchen” and “There is only love.”

Think about what's true for you. Each person’s list will differ. One person's commandment is to "Say yes," another person's commandment is to "Say no." You need to think about yourself, your values, your strengths and weaknesses, your interests.

I've written about commandments in the past, and it's fascinating to read other people's commandments. For instance:

Do stuff.
Talk to strangers.
Stay in touch.
Make haste to be kind.
Dig deep.
Less is more.
Smaller.

Have you identified some of your own personal commandments? What are they? Please consider posting them. It's so interesting to see what other people identify.

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'm a huge fan of my friend Erin Doland's terrific blog, Unclutterer—"daily tips about getting and staying organized." Useful and funny. Who knew that clutter could be funny?

* Want a happiness quote in your email inbox every morning? Sign up for the Moment of Happiness. Subscribe here or email me at gretchenrubin1@gretchenrubin.com.

Think of Yourself In The Third Person.

I remember reading somewhere that writer Anne Lamott thinks about herself in the third person, to take better care of herself: “I’m sorry, Anne Lamott can’t accept that invitation to speak; she’s finishing a book so needs to keep her schedule clear.”

I find that often, the same trick helps me to be realistic about myself. "Gretchen gets frantic when she's really hungry, so she can't wait too long for dinner." "Gretchen needs some quiet time each day." "Gretchen really feels the cold, so she can't be outside for too long."

Yes, I admit, this approach makes me sound a bit affected and self-important, but the thing is, it really works.

For instance, for the last few weeks, I felt...depleted. Physically, I felt energetic enough, but mentally, I was like a cell phone that couldn't take a charge. I couldn't figure out what to do, but finally I thought of myself in the third person.

As the long holiday weekend approached, I asked myself, "What's the best medicine for Gretchen when she feels drained?" And, when I framed the question about my nature that way, from outside myself, I immediately knew the answer. "Gretchen gets mentally refreshed by doing a lot of reading."

That's what I needed. No writing; hours and hours of reading. A novel I'd never read before, a novel that was long enough to last, a novel that was absorbing without being so demanding that it would just exhaust me more. Fortunately, I had exactly the right book, right on my bedside table. I spent a good part of the holiday weekend reading Neal Stephenson's Reamde. And by the time I finished the book, I felt restored.

Self-knowledge! It seems as though it should be so easy to know yourself, but it's very, very challenging. For me, it's often easier to gain self-insight by using indirect routes—such as asking myself questions like What do I lie about? or Who are my patron saints?—rather than by trying to look at myself directly.

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.

* Lots of great material on Positively Positive—"your attitude + your choices = your life."

* The holidays are approaching! If you're giving The Happiness Project as a gift (can't resist mentioning: #1 New York Times bestseller), and you'd like a signed bookplate or signature card to include with it, sign up here or email me at gretchenrubin1@gretchenrubin.com. But do it fast! There's not much time.

The Eight Splendid Truths of Happiness.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day, or List Day.

In my study of happiness, I've labored to identify its fundamental principles. Because I get a tremendous kick out of the numbered lists that pop up throughout Buddhism (the Triple Refuge, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, the eight auspicious symbols), I decided to dub these fundamental principles as my Eight Splendid Truths.

Each one of these truths sounds fairly obvious and straightforward, but each was the product of tremendous thought. Take the Second Splendid Truth—it’s hard to exaggerate the clarity I gained when I finally managed to put it into words. Here they are:

First Splendid Truth
To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

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.

Third Splendid Truth
The days are long, but the years are short. (Click here to see my one-minute movie; of everything I've written about happiness, I think this video resonates most with people.)

Fourth Splendid Truth
You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
[Many argue the opposite case. John Stuart Mill, for example, wrote, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” I disagree.]

Fifth Splendid Truth
I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature.

Sixth Splendid Truth
The only person I can change is myself.

Seventh Splendid Truth
Happy people make people happy, but
I can’t make someone be happy, and
No one else can make me happy.

Eighth Splendid Truth
Now is now.

What did I miss? What Splendid Truth is missing from that list?

Now I’m trying to come up with my personal eight auspicious symbols for happiness. Let’s see—bluebird, ruby slippers, dice, blood, bird house, treasure box, roses…hmmm. I will have to keep thinking about that.

* I enjoyed cruising around The Cool Hunter—"roaming the USA and the globe, so you're in the know"—to look at all the cool things there.

* The holidays are approaching! If you're giving The Happiness Project (can't resist mentioning: #1 New York Times bestseller), and you'd like a signed bookplate or signature card to include with it, sign up here or email me at gretchenrubin1@gretchenrubin.com. But do it fast! There's not much time.
Order your copy.
Read sample chapters.

Self-Knowledge: Identify Your Patron Saints.

Self-knowledge is crucial to happiness, but it's challenging to know yourself. Sometimes, I find, I can gain insight by asking myself questions that make me take stock of my interests and values.

For that reason, I asked myself, "Who are my patron saints? Of my Happiness Project, in particular, and for myself generally?" (A "patron saint" is a saint who has a special connection to a person, place, profession, or activity, or in more casual terms, a person who serves as a particular leader or example.)

Here are my six patron saints:

Benjamin Franklin: practical, curious, inventive.

St. Therese of Lisieux: showing great love through small, ordinary actions.

Samuel Johnson: wildly eccentric, with a deep understanding of human nature.

Julia Child: goofy yet masterly; light-hearted yet authoritative.

Winston Churchill: indefatigable, indomitable.

Virginia Woolf: intensely attuned to the power of the passing moment.

Well, Julia Child and Winston Churchill are probably rarely paired together in the same discussion, but they both represent very powerful ideas to me. It's interesting—the posts I've written about these figures are among my favorites of all the posts I've written. I love thinking and writing about my patron saints.

Who are your patron saints? Why?

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.

* Speaking of Samuel Johnson, my next book takes its title from Johnson. Johnson remarked, "To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends." My next book is called Happier at Home. What a pleasure it has been to write this book! If you'd like to be notified when it's available, sign up here.

Imitate a Spiritual Master. One Candidate: Steve Jobs.

One of my favorite resolutions is to Imitate a spiritual master. My spiritual master is St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and I've read her spiritual memoir, Story of a Soul, many times, as well as a whole shelf full of biographies. I think about St. Thérèse every single day (and I'm not even Catholic).

From reading the impassioned commentary surrounding the death of Steve Jobs, it's clear to me that many people look to Jobs as a spiritual master -- for his creative genius, for his perseverance in the face of failure and frustration, for his ability to communicate his vision, for his fidelity to himself and his own values.

When I read in Charles Duhigg's New York Times piece that people were paying tribute to Jobs by leaving apples, with one bite missing, outside Job's house in Palo Alto, I choked up. I went to re-read, for the umpteenth time, Jobs's thought-provoking 2005 Stanford commencement address, and I finally found the video version.

The first step to imitating a spiritual master is to identify that person, and then to contemplate what that person stands for, what that person is teaching you. The final step is to try to put those teachings to work, in your life.

One way quickly yet meaningfully to honor Jobs's life would be to sign up to be an organ donor. And of course there are countless other ways, too, each specific to an individual.

It's interesting: both St. Thérèse and Steve Jobs knew that death was imminent (from tuberculosis and cancer, respectively). Jobs observed, "Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent." One of the goals for my happiness project is to appreciate my life now, without the threat of death, beyond the ordinary intimations of mortality.

Who is your spiritual master? How do you try to imitate that person's example and teachings, in your own life?

* 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 always enjoy checking out Time's Healthland -- "a healthy balance of mind, body and spirit." Lots of great information there.

* Want a happiness quotation in your email inbox every morning? Sign up for the Moment of Happiness. Subscribe here.

Follow a Threshold Ritual.

Gratitude is a key element for a happy life. People who cultivate gratitude get a boost in happiness and optimism, feel more connected to other people, are better-liked and have more friends, are more likely to help others—they even sleep better and have fewer headaches.

Nevertheless, I find it...challenging to cultivate a grateful frame of mind. I find it all too easy to fail to appreciate all the things I feel grateful for—from pervasive, basic things like democratic government and running water, to major, personal aspects of my life such as the fact that I love my work and that my younger daughter has outgrown her fearsome tantrums, to little passing joys, like an unexpectedly cool July morning. I get preoccupied with petty complaints and minor irritations, and forget just how much happiness I already have.

I tried keeping a gratitude journal, but I gave it up, because it bugged me. But I found a different gratitude prompt: I remind myself to be grateful every time I sit down at my computer or laptop (which I do, oh, about 20-30 times a day).

I've also started a new gratitude prompt: Follow a threshold ritual. Each time I stand at the top of the steps of my building, as I fumble for my keys to turn off the alarm and unlock the two front doors, I remind myself, “How happy I am, how grateful I am, to be home.” Every time I cross the threshold from street into my building, I take a moment to reflect lovingly on my family and my home. (As the practices of many religions show, thresholds are powerful places.)

The days are long, but the years are short, and I know that this time that seems endless--my husband and I, with our girls, all under the same roof, with hair-bands and magic markers underfoot, and the sound of Jim Dale reading Harry Potter playing constantly in the background—is actually just a short period over the course of my life. I want to appreciate this season and this time.

The Fourth Splendid Truth holds that “I’m not happy unless I think I’m happy,” a precept that artist Eugène Delacroix captured in a powerful analogy: “He was like a man owning a piece of ground in which, unknown to himself, a treasure lay buried. You would not call such a man rich, neither would I call happy the man who is so without realizing it.” I have my treasure, but it's all too easy to overlook it, to walk right over it without realizing it, without appreciating how happy I am.

Mindfulness! Happiness always circles back to mindfulness. Which is too bad for me, because I'm an extremely unmindful person. But I'm working on it.

How about you? Have you found any good gratitude prompts? A friend uses her screensaver and passwords to remind her to have an "attitude of gratitude." I think that's a brilliant idea; we have to deal with these computer things constantly; why not have them serve a useful purpose?

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.

* Two days ago, I posted about 7 books that changed the way I see the world, and noted that most of them shared the quality of reduction -- they were studies of how radically to distill ideas. A thoughtful reader send me this post about Minimalist posters for your favorite children's stories. Brilliant! Each image by Christian Jackson distills a familiar story into a single, powerful image. It's fun to look at the picture and see if you know what it illustrates, just from that image. Some are easy, like Little Red Riding Hood, but others -- such as Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Mary Poppins -- are tougher, but make perfect sense.

* Want to launch or join a group for people doing Happiness Projects together? Email me at gretchenrubin1 at gretchenrubin dot com for the starter kit. Want to see if a group already exists in your area? Look here. Want to talk to people about starting a new group? Start a discussion here. I'm thrilled by all the interest in starting Happiness Project groups! Keep me posted!

Why Don't Celebrities--Like Katy Perry--Want People to Make Eye Contact? Darshan.

Over the weekend, I was intrigued to see this story in the New York Post: "The ultimate star perk is forbidding eye contact." According to the Smoking Gun, singer Katy Perry’s contract covering her driver provides that the driver isn’t supposed to “stair” (sic) at her in the rear-view mirror.

The piece notes that there have been many similar rumors over the years — that people were prohibited from making eye contact with Luke Perry, Tori Spelling, Sylvester Stallone, and others.

When I read this story, I had a huge rush of intellectual pleasure. Because I think I've figured this out! Darshan.

Years ago, when I was doing the research for my first book, Power Money Fame Sex: A User's Guide, I was struck by how often celebrities made rules about eye contact. Why would they do that? Then I learned about darshan, the Sanskrit term meaning “sight” or “auspicious viewing.” Darshan is the beneficial glow that comes from being in the presence of a great spiritual leader (or holy place or object). Merely looking at such a person – and even better, receiving his or her glance – bestows a blessing. In Vikram Chandra’s terrific novel set in India, Sacred Games, people also sought darshan of a rich and famous mobster.

So when people follow Woody Allen down the street for blocks, or stand outside in the freezing cold to see Barack Obama speak in person instead of watching him on TV, it’s because they want darshan.

I myself don’t have much feeling for darshan, but it’s obvious how eagerly many people seek it out. I clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and I can testify that a Supreme Court Justice has some mighty darshan. Justices are treated with great deference and respect, but by contrast, TV and movie stars – especially those considered very friendly and accessible – can be overwhelmed by people’s desire for darshan.

Perhaps, if you’re a saint or guru, you aren’t depleted by the act of making eye contact, and some celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people definitely seem to feed off of people’s attention and gaze. But this transfer may explain why some powerful or famous people try to prevent others from make eye contact. The people seeking darshan drain them of their energy.

Have you felt this, yourself? Even in my own, non-celebrity life, I sometimes feel that making eye contact with a person can give a jolt of energy, or more often, drain some energy away. When I’m feeling low, I sometimes struggle with the effort to make eye contact and say hello to an acquaintance on the street.

Darshan and Katy Perry. It makes me so happy to feel that I’ve figured out some particular quirk of human nature. The sense of intellectual satisfaction is so gratifying -- in fact, I suppose, I've organized my entire working life around the search for these moments.

* I always find a lot of funny, thought-provoking posts on Mom-101.

* Join the happiness discussion on Facebook. Lots of interesting conversation there.

11 Happiness Paradoxes to Contemplate As You Think About Your Happiness Project.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day, or List Day.
This Wednesday: 11 paradoxes to contemplate as you think about your own happiness project.

As I’ve worked on my happiness project, I’ve been struck by the paradoxes I keep confronting. As physicist Niels Bohr said, "How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress."

One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “The opposite of a great truth is also true” – and I try to embrace these contradictions:

1. Accept myself, but expect more of myself. This tension is at the core of any happiness project.

2. Take myself less seriously—and take myself more seriously.

3. Push myself to use my time efficiently, yet also make time to play, to wander, to read at whim, to fail.

4. Strive to be emotionally self-sufficient so I can connect better with other people. Only recently have I begun to understand the importance of this idea.

5. Keep an empty shelf, and keep a junk drawer.

6. Think about myself so I can forget myself.

7. Control and mastery are key elements of happiness; and so are novelty and challenge.

8. Work can be play, and play can be work. As George Orwell observed, “But what is work and what is not work? Is it work to dig, to carpenter, to plant trees, to fell trees, to ride, to fish, to hunt, to feed chickens, to play the piano, to take photographs, to build a house, to cook, to sew, to trim hats, to mend motor bicycles? All of these things are work to somebody, and all of them are play to somebody.”

9. The days are long, but the years are short. (Watch the video here.)

10. Happiness doesn't always make me feel happy.

11. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection. In Japanese, there is a beautiful term, wabi-sabi, which describes the special beauty of the imperfect, the incomplete, and the transient. Superficially similar, but actually different in meaning (as I understand it), is the phrase from software development, Worse is better.

12. Spend out, to become rich.

Often, the search for happiness means embracing both sides of the paradox.

Take, for example, #1 above. W. H. Auden articulates beautifully this tension: “Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.”

What are the accidental limitations, and what the necessary limitations? The first and most important of my Twelve Personal Commandments is to Be Gretchen, and this question is one of the most significant to consider.

What paradoxes of happiness have you discovered?

* My fried Mike Errico is an amazing musician, and he just released this video of his new song "Count to Ten." I love it. I have to say, it seems almost like magic when someone I know sings and plays music beautifully. Or paints a picture right in front of me.

* Sign up for the Moment of Happiness, and each weekday morning, you'll get a happiness quotation in your email in-box. Sign up here or email me at gretchenrubin1 at gmail dot com (don't forget the "1"). More than 25,000 people have signed up in just a few months.

"If I Could Remove One Phrase from the English Language, It Would Be 'It Is What It Is.'"

Happiness interview: Hope Edelman.

I first met Hope Edelman when her book The Possibility of Everything had just been published, through my friend Kamy Wicoff of SheWrites. I already knew Hope by reputation, because of her other books, such as Motherless Daughters. Then, as these things happen, our paths crossed again in a virtual group for writers.

Hope's very thoughtful work often focuses on serious challenges to happiness, and how to face them, so I was very eager to get the chance to interview her.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Hope: Taking a long, hot shower. If I’m feeling down or stressed I find it completely cleanses my attitude and lifts me up. Some ancient cultures believed in the spiritual properties of bathing and thought of it as a form of purification. There may be something to that.

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
That’s it’s okay not to feel happy all the time. Striving for and expecting a consistently high level of happiness sets you up for disappointment. A regular life is full of emotional peaks and valleys. That’s what makes it interesting. At least for a writer.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
Spending too much time online. A writer’s job now involves a hefty amount of platform cultivation and social networking which—despite the “social” tag—are relatively solitary pursuits. I thrive on real, face-to-face interpersonal communication. To me, spending an entire day alone in front of a computer is the purest form of hell.

Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself "No calculation.”)
The Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The wisdom to know the difference. That’s the ticket, I think.

If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost? Or, like a “comfort food,” do you have a comfort activity? (mine is reading children’s books).
Aromatherapy. If it’s night time, I put a few drops of lavender on my pillow. During the day I might burn some copal (a resin from Central America) and let the smoke swirl around the room. Buying or picking fresh flowers works, too, and putting a full vase in the kitchen or living room.

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
If I could remove one phrase from the English language, it would be “It is what it is.” What’s that supposed to mean? Too often, it seems like a fast and easy way to label a complicated situation “a thing I cannot change," thereby giving the speaker permission to abandon efforts to improve it. No.

Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy – if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?
I think I’ve always been about the same amount of happy, but not always the same amount of content. Does that make sense? What I mean is I always have an underlying feeling of gratitude for my family, for my health, for being alive. My mother died at 42 with three kids under the age of 18, so I don’t take any of my time here for granted. But insofar that my general outlook has historically been linked to how content I feel with the outer trappings of success such as house, workload, income, career—that part definitely fluctuates. When I’m feeling down for one of those reasons, spending time with my kids usually pulls me out of a funk, and reminds me of what really matters. Day trips that help break the regular routine are good for this, too. A day at Disneyland with my kids actually cheers me up. I hope I don’t take too much grief for saying that.

Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
I feel like I should say yes—but that wouldn’t be the truth. I do work on being calmer, more balanced, less reactive, more compassionate, more honest with myself, and measurably kind to others every day. When I feel I’ve achieved any of those in a given day, feeling happy is usually the outcome.

Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t – or vice versa?
I anticipated that having a baby would catapult me into an immediate state of joy. Instead, new motherhood with a colicky baby was an absolute blur of chaos and exhaustion. After about three months the crying stopped, and I was able to get more than three consecutive hours of sleep. My whole outlook improved. And I suddenly realized, “Wow! This is why people have kids!”

* Sign up for the Moment of Happiness, and each weekday morning, you'll get a happiness quotation in your email in-box. Sign up here or email me at gretchenrubin1 at gmail dot com (don't forget the "1"). More than 20,000 people have signed up in just a few months.

"Happiness and Moral Duty Are Inseparably Connected."

"Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected."
-- George Washington

* It was great fun to see myself used as an example in a thought-provoking article by Dan Pink: Ever felt like your job isn't what you're born to do? You're not alone. With my friend Marci Alboher, too!

* Want a free, personalized bookplate for your copy of The Happiness Project – or for a friend? Email me at gretchenrubin1 at gmail dot com. Feel free to ask for as many as you’d like – and don’t forget to include your mailing address.