This sign is posted all over my neighborhood. The truly charming thing about it is that the sign’s words are printed in green, and there’s a faint green shamrock behind the words. Think of it: someone in the city bureaucracy actually took the time and effort to print the words in green. That’s the spirit!

This is one of the things that I love most about New York City—the sense that things are astir, that people are excited about some happening of which I know nothing.

I never thought much about St. Patrick’s Day in NYC until a few years ago, when I happened to walk down Second Avenue on the afternoon of the parade. It was jammed with people, with green and shamrocks and Irish flags everywhere. How had I never seen this before?

Last year, when I served on a jury, the policeman who was on the witness stand and the judge both wore green ties on March 17.

It’s like Fashion Week, or when the United Nations meets, or Chinese New Year, or when Wagner’s Ring cycle is at the Metropolitan Opera House. These events don’t matter to me, but I love the feeling that something exciting is happening nearby. One day, who knows, maybe I’ll decide to show up, too.

*
Zoikes, there’s a lot of great material at Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist blog. Talk about a happiness project — she actually MOVED cities, from New York City to Madison, Wisconsin — because the happiness research indicated that she’d be happier there.

I guess the pleasure of seeing the signs for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade wasn’t quite enough to keep her here.

Her explanation of why she moved, and the happiness data she drew on, is fascinating.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Five tips for cutting calories without dieting—in fact, without really noticing.

Most people would like to lose a few pounds, but no one likes to diet. Here are some tips that I’ve been following to cut calories out of my diet without feeling deprived.

1. I eat as many fruits and non-starchy vegetables as I want. No limits.

2. I put tempting food in an inconvenient spot. Research shows that people are far more likely to eat food if it’s easily accessible. In one study, a cafeteria with an ice-cream cooler opened its glass lid on some days, and left it closed on other days. Nothing else changed — but when the lid was already open, 30% of diners bought ice cream, and when it was closed, only 14% bought ice cream. And the only difference was whether they had to open the lid!

3. I use smaller plates and utensils—sounds ridiculous, but research shows that these affect portion size. I often use the Little Girl’s plastic Cinderella plates (though I can’t say I’ve gone as far as to use her little fork and spoon).

4. When I’m filling my plate, I put all the food I plan to eat on my plate at once, and I don’t allow myself seconds. This has made a huge difference in the way I eat. My previous habit was to take three lady-like helpings that probably added up to much more than one enormous serving.

5. I used to pick off other people’s plates constantly. No more. One bite of a grilled-cheese sandwich has 68 calories. Four French fries have 42 calories. A bite here, and a bite there, and I’ve eaten more calories than if I’d ordered dessert.

These are fairly easy, mild ways to cut calories. Next Wednesday, I’m going to list the more Spartan and controversial rules I follow.

If you like this approach—eating in a way that means you don’t have to diet—there are three excellent books that together make a great eating plan: Brian Wansink’s Mindless Eating, Lisa Young’s The Portion Teller, and Rolls and Barnett’s Volumetrics.

*
Ririan Project is a blog with a lot of great material on “personal development.” I dislike that phrase, and every substitute I could think of, but can’t come up with anything better. Lots of numbered tip list for fans of tip lists (like me).

I’m having one of those practice-what-I-preach opportunities. Unfortunately.

My first commandment (see left-hand column) is “Be Gretchen.” One revelation of my happiness project has been getting the dimmest sense of what this precept actually means, and why it’s so challenging to follow.

Here’s my current difficulty.

Last week, I gave my fantastic (and long-suffering) agent a sample chapter for THE HAPPINESS PROJECT book proposal. She told me she laughed when she read it, because my approach was so absolutely characteristic.

This is what happens when I “Be Gretchen” with my writing: I take a vast subject that fascinates me (power/money/fame/sex; Churchill; JFK; happiness – all actually aspects of my one overriding interest, human nature); I amass a huge amount of research; I think about the subject obsessively; and I try to find a cunning structure that will allow me to pack in as much wheat as possible, while eliminating every bit of chaff. Chaff that some people find important, like transitions, scene-setting, reflections, background information, etc.

I remember that when I was trying to sell Power Money Fame Sex, some publishing person told me my writing “had too many ideas.” Which reminded me of that scene in the movie Amadeus when Salieri tells Mozart that his music has “too many notes.” (I found this a very comforting comparison.)

But I’ve come to understand what that person meant. So many books are a 35-page essay crammed into a 200-page book; my problem is just the opposite. Too much material; at the same time, not enough material.

So, knowing this about myself, how do I harness my natural strengths, but also shore up my weaknesses? How can I “Be Gretchen” – but an improved Gretchen? Of course, this isn’t just a question that concerns the writing about my happiness project, but the very purpose of undertaking the project.

W. H. Auden observed, “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.”

It turns out that happiness is a lot of work.

This morning, the New York Times ran a short piece, How Self-Control Lowers a Buyer’s Guard.

A paper in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that after doing an exercise that required self-restraint, people spent much more on impulse purchases.

In the study, college students were given an exercise: writing down their thoughts while not thinking of a white bear, or reading from a boring book while assuming a fake expression of interest. Next, they were given $10 to save or spend on an assortment of products.

The average sum spent by a test subject who’d just used self-control was $4.44. The average sum spent by a test subject who hadn’t just used self-control was $1.21.

Apparently, after people use self-restraint in a particular context, they have less self-restraint available to meet the next challenge.

Boy, this rings true to me.

Just recently, I sat with a plate of cookies in front of me for a two-hour meeting without taking a single one (distracted by that effort the entire time), only to grab a big handful of Hershey’s kisses from the bowl at the reception desk on the way out.

Yesterday, I battled myself to bite back the nagging words I wanted to hurl at the Big Man: “Can’t you hurry up?” “Aren’t you ready yet?” “We’re going to be late!” Then, one second after I congratulated myself on my self-restraint, I complained to him in a rude voice, “You never answered any of my scheduling emails.”

While exercising no longer takes a huge effort of will for me (this took years to achieve), I remember the days when I’d force myself to go to the gym, then buy a cookie on the way home.

This study provides an insight that’s truly useful in real life. If I know that my self-restraint is apt to be low after I’ve exercised it, I know to be extra-vigilant for a while, until my self-control store replenishes itself.

*
If you just can’t hear enough about the Happiness Project, check out the “Five Minute Interview” on Mind Hacks, where they were kind enough to interview me.

*
Marginal Revolution is a blog by two economists who take an expansive view of what subjects they discuss. There, I was delighted to discover a W. H. Auden poem, “The More Loving One,” I’d somehow never read before. My favorite relevant-to-the-Happiness-Project lines are:

If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

“Whatever fate befalls you, do not give way to great rejoicings or great lamentation; partly because all things are full of change, and your fortune may turn at any moment; partly because men are so apt to be deceived in their judgment as to what is good or bad for them.” –Schopenhauer.

*
The same point is made in an Eastern parable that my mother often quotes.

One day, an old farmer discovered that his horse had run away. “Terrible!” his neighbors said sympathetically. “How do you know?” asked the farmer.

The next morning the farmer’s horse returned with two wild horses. “Wonderful!” the neighbors said. “How do you know?” asked the farmer.

The next morning the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown off, and broke his leg. “Terrible!” his neighbors said. “How do you know?” asked the farmer.

The next morning, soldiers came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. “Wonderful!” said the neighbors. “How do you know?” asked the farmer.