This week, I took both my daughters to the pediatrician for their annual check-ups. I was a little late, but the need to turn in camp health forms got me to schedule the appointments, finally.

As I walked out of the second appointment this morning, I found myself thinking, “Good! That’s another thing to cross off my to-do list.”

But this afternoon, another thought occurred to me. At various points, several of my friends would have joyfully given all they possessed for a fifteen-minute appointment with the pediatrician that ended with the cheerful words, “Everything looks great! See you in the fall for flu shots.”

Once again, I remind myself: The things for which I’m most grateful are often the things that I take for granted.

One day, we all have that bad visit to the doctor’s office, but this week, our visits were good. And I want never to lose sight of how very, very grateful I am for that.

Further Secrets of Adulthood:

 

We tend to over-estimate what we can do in a short time (say, an afternoon), and under-estimate what we can do over a longer time (a month) a little bit at a time. This realization led me to my very helpful resolution to Suffer for fifteen minutes. (I write about it a lot in Happier at Home, chapter on “Time.”)

At the same time, it’s true that some people prefer to do a lot packed into a short time, and others prefer to do less over a longer period. Are you a tortoise or a hare? I asked a friend, “Are you a tortoise or a hare? If a piece of work took 21 hours, would you rather work for 3 hours  a day for 7 days, or 7 hours a day for 3 days?” She said, “I’d rather work for 2 days, for 10.5 hours!” A true hare.

How about you?

Because nothing boosts happiness more than a great book, each month, I suggest:

• One outstanding book about happiness.
• One outstanding work of children’s or young-adult literature. I have a crazy passion for kidlit.
• One eccentric pick. This is a book that I love, but freely admit may not be for everyone.

I’ll post these recommendations here, or to make sure you don’t miss them, sign up for the monthly Book Club newsletter.

Shop at the wonderful Brooklyn indie WORD, BN.com, Amazon (I’m an affiliate of all three), or your favorite local bookstore. Or visit the library! Drumroll…

An outstanding book about happiness:  Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice. Buy from WORD; BN.com; Amazon.

An outstanding children’s book:  J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Buy from WORD; BN.com; Amazon.

An eccentric pick: Sir James Frazer’s  The Golden Bough.  Buy from WORD; BN.com;  Amazon.

I’ve noticed that many times, when someone describes a book to me, I want to read it less. And often, weirdly, the better a book is, the worse it sounds. So I won’t describe these books, but I love all the books I recommend; I’ve read them at least twice if not many times; and they’re widely loved.

If you read last month’s recommendations…what did you think? Wilson’s Naturalist, Godden’s The Greengage Summer, O’Connor’s Wise Blood.

For the weekly videos, I now tell a story. I’ve realized that for me, and I think for many people, a story is what holds my attention and makes a point most powerfully.

This week’s story: Now I’m free from French fries. It relates to one of my favorite subjects: the abstainer/moderator split.

 

Can’t see the video? Click here.

If you want to read more along these lines, check out…

Want to be free from French fries? Or, why abstaining may be easier than you think.

Are you an Abstainer or a Moderator?

Trying to resist holiday temptations? 7 tips for abstainers and moderators.

You can also read more about this in Happier at Home, chapter six.

Find the archives of videos here.  More than 1.3 MILLION views. Don’t forget to subscribe!

My recent post, Beware of “decoy habits,” spurred a lot of conversation, and it’s clear to me that the subject is much more complex, and interesting, than I initially realized.

Readers made many thought-provoking comments. One reader pointed to research that suggests that talking about a goal can lead to the false feeling of already having achieved that goal. I’ve seen that research–and I’ve also seen research suggesting that talking about a goal can help you stick to that goal, by making you feel more committed, and also more accountable to the people you’ve told. So it seems to go both ways.

From my own experience–a statistically insignificant yet often helpful data point–this is a point on which people differ. Some do better if they don’t talk it up too much; some do better if they tell others what they want to do.

Exhibit A is my former roommate, who told people that she did yoga, and telling them seemed to convince her that she did, in fact, do yoga. Perhaps discussing it undermined her determination actually to do it.

Exhibit B is my friend who is trying to drink less, who says it’s very helpful to her to announce, “I’m cutting back on my drinking, so I’m only having one glass of wine tonight.” For her, telling people adds an important layer of external accountability.

I’m curious: in your personal experience: Does announcing a resolution make you more likely to keep it, or less likely–or neither?

I don’t think it matters much to me whether I announce it or not–I suspect that’s a result of my Upholder nature.  How about you?