Thank you, readers! I just found out that The Happiness Project has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 100 straight weeks.

I so appreciate everyone’s support and enthusiasm. I’m very happy!

An appreciation for art is one of the transcendent values of life, and a great source of happiness, but like many transcendent values, it can sometimes be hard to wedge into your ordinary day.

Here are some tips for getting some visual art into your daily routine, without spending a lot of time, energy, or money.

1. Check out art books from the library. Art books are very expensive, but at the library, you can enjoy as many as you want, for free.

2. Here’s a brilliant suggestion from a reader: When she’s at a museum, she buys postcards of her favorite works of art. She keeps a big stack of these masterpiece postcards, and from time to time, puts a new bunch in the sun visor of her car. When she’s stuck in traffic, she pulls them out and looks at them.

3. Enjoy picture books. We tend to look at picture books only when we’re around very young children, but picture books can be such a source of joy. I wrote a series of posts for the New York Times Motherlode blog about my love of picture books.

4. Don’t feel like you have to spend hours in a museum.  My family has become members of several museums, so we can visit as often as we like, and for as long or as short a time as we like, without having to pay extra. I find that I like visiting museums much more when I go often, and for a short time.

5. Treat a a store like an art gallery. Visit some outrageously exquisite store, or even a department store or hardware store, without the expectation of purchase–just to enjoy the items there. Added bonus: in a store, you can touch and handle objects. A few months ago, I spent a good five minutes running my hands over a fake-fur throw during a trip to Bloomingdale’s. Extremely satisfying.

6. Make something yourself. There’s a great pleasure in making something by hand–even something as basic as sticking cloves into an orange to make a pomander ball. During high school, I made dozens of pomander balls. Find out something you’d like to make, and set aside time and space to do it.

7. Use sites like Pinterest or Instagram. It’s funny–one way of laying claim to a beautiful object is to take a photograph of it. Taking photos of beautiful sights, or “pinning” them, is a very satisfying way to engage with the world, and then you can look back with great pleasure on all your images. Your own gallery. (You can follow me on Pinterest and Instagram, if you’re curious to see what I’m choosing.)

What other strategies do you use to bring the pleasure of visual art into your everyday life?

I love teaching stories–parables from the Bible, Zen stories, paradoxes, Aesop’s fables, koans. That’s one reason that I now use my weekly video to tell a story.

One such story is the story of “Buridan’s ass.” In it, an ass stands between two identical piles of hay, and unable to find a reason to choose one pile over the other, dies of hunger.

I know this story well, and I was struck by how absolutely perfectly it applies to Geoff Dyer’s description of his struggle to decide what book to write next, as set forth in his fascinating book, Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence. Dyer writes:

Although I had made up my mind to write a book about Lawrence I had also made up my mind to write a novel, and while the decision to write the book about Lawrence was made later it had not entirely superseded that earlier decision. At first I’d had an overwhelming urge to write both books but these two desires had worn each other down to the point where I had no urge to write either. Writing them both at the same time was inconceivable and so these two equally overwhelming ambitions first wore each other down and then wiped each other out. As soon as I thought about working on the novel I fell to thinking that it would be much more enjoyable to write my study of Lawrence. As soon as I started making notes on Lawrence I realised I was probably sabotaging forever any chance of writing my novel which, more than any other book I had written, had to be written immediately, before another protracted bout of labour came between me and the idea of what I perceived as a rambling, sub-Bernhardian rant of a novel. It was now or never.  So I went from making notes on Lawrence to mkaing notes for my novel, by which I mean I went from not working on my book about Lawrence to not working on the novel because all of this to-ing and fro-ing and note-taking actually meant that I never did any work on either book.

This description struck a real chord with me. I’ve had that feeling of paralysis when I just couldn’t decide between two options. A very unhappy feeling.

Sidenote: This also reminds me of my Secret of Adulthood: Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.

Have you ever been stuck between two choices?

Blatant self-promotion alert–you’ve been warned:

To my great delight, The Happiness Project has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 99 straight weeks (including at #1). This is absolutely thrilling, and I’m so grateful.

I’m thrilled and grateful–but I have to admit, I’m also really hoping to cross the 100 week mark. There’s just something about ONE HUNDRED. And it’s just one more week!

So, if you’re planning to buy a copy of The Happiness Project for yourself or a friend (or for every member of your office or perhaps the citizens of a small town), I would really appreciate it if you’d buy it this week.

Because of the “arrival fallacy,” we often fall into the pattern of thinking, “I’ll be happy when I make partner,” or “I’ll be happy when I hand in my thesis” or “I’ll be happy when I have a new house”–but then arriving there doesn’t actually boost our happiness as much as we expected. So I know that whether or not the book hits 100 weeks probably won’t affect my happiness all that much.

I know that, and yet…I still very much hope to to see the book hit the 100 mark.

Further self-promotion: If you’ve already read The Happiness Project, but you haven’t yet read Happier at Home, I hope you’ll consider reading it. I love all my books equally, but my sister the sage says that Happier at Home is my best book.

Want more information?

The Happiness Project: Read a sample chapter; watch the 1-minute video; request the book-group discussion guide.

Happier at Home: Read a a sample chapter; watch the 1-minute video; request the book-group discussion guide.

Okay, end of self-promotion.

Happiness interview: Pamela Druckerman.

I first heard about journalist and author Pamela Druckerman when her book Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting came out–it really struck a chord with many parents.

Now she has a new book, Bébé Day By Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting, which hits the shelves next week. I find lists irresistible–and lists of 100, even more irresistible.

I was very interested to hear what she had to say about happiness.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?

Pamela: Reading a good book. Whenever I do this, I’m amazed that I don’t do it more often.

Also, knowing – and naming – the little things that make me happy, makes me very happy. When I think of something I like, I try to jot it down somewhere. Then inevitably, I lose track of it. The other day I came across a slip of paper on which I’d written simply, “the word ‘shimmy.’” A list I wrote last year included “stretching,” “tea with soy milk,” and “dresses that come with free belts.”

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?

I know how to be happy around other people. I can share a feeling – a moment – and trust that others are feeling it too. I have more faith that I’m not so different from everyone else.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?

Internetting. I also watch quite a lot of American TV, using the excuse that I’m keeping up with American culture (I live in Paris). I probably am keeping up with the American zeitgeist. But at the end of back-to-back episodes of Modern Family, I don’t feel energized. I feel exhausted.

Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”)

“Done is better than perfect.” I had that over my desk for a long time. It’s a key principle for a perfectionist who’s trying to finish a book.

Is there some aspect of your home that makes you particularly happy?

I like it when the house is neat. Or rather, I’m extremely unhappy when it’s messy. I reach a breaking point – a sort of point of maximum clutter. When that happens, I usually rope everyone into a mad half-hour of cleaning up. Then I can relax, and be calm again. Of course, by then, everyone hates me.

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).

I find that forcing myself to be un-busy and just hang out in an open-ended way with my kids, usually on the weekends, has an enormous payoff for everyone.  You can see, at bedtime, how much more content and less anxious they are. They seem sort of filled up with what they needed. Also, the more I trust them and let them do things on their own, the better everything flows at home.

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’ve probably gotten happier as I’ve gotten older. I’ve gotten better at choosing friends (or rather, at weeding out the narcissists). I used to think that I needed to surround myself with people who are fascinating. Nowadays I much prefer people who are funny and nice.