This month’s theme is “Buy a white t-shirt; throw away a white t-shirt.” I set myself this goal because I have trouble making myself buy things I truly need or would love to possess, and once I own something, it’s hard to make myself let go of it—even when I should.

My favorite summer uniform is jeans or khakis with a v-neck white t-shirt. The burn rate on white t-shirts is pretty high, so I really should buy some new ones each year.

But instead, I hang on to the old ones too long—even when they’re looking very dingy. Because I hate to buy new shirts, I don’t want to let the old ones go.

Even though buying a white t-shirt was a key mission for July, it was July 15 before I actually managed to make a purchase.

It was only recently that I noticed that I vastly preferred white t-shirts. In the past, when I did go shopping, I’d buy a variety of colors and styles, on the assumption that I’d like some choices.

But then every morning, I’d reach for the same tired white shirts.

I’m not alone in failing to predict what I’ll want in the future. Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness describes a study in which volunteers were asked to come to the lab for a snack once a week for several weeks. Some volunteers received their favorite snack each time; some volunteers got their favorite snack most of the time, and their second-favorite snack at other times. Which group was happier? The no-variety group. People preferred to have their favorite snack each time.

In the same way, I’ve realized that every day, I will choose the white shirt. So that’s what I should buy.

I find it tough to shop for myself, and I’m only somewhat better about buying needful things for my family. For example, the Big Girl was frustrated by her backpack. She’s had it for several years, and it’s too small to hold her camp impedimenta and her Tae Kwon Do uniform. As for her lunch—no way that’s going to fit.

She’s been asking for a bigger backpack since camp started, and she really needs one. And she’ll need it for school, too. But did I buy a backpack as soon as it was clear she needed it? No.

Now, I think it’s good for children to work up some real longing and anticipation. But the Big Girl needs the backpack for purely practical reasons. It’s not a treat.

I finally followed my own rule: Identify the problem. Why hadn’t I bought a backpack? Answer: I didn’t know where to buy it and dreaded hunting through a lot of stores.

As soon as I recognized the problem, I knew the solution. I have a friend who always knows where to buy all the stuff kids need: the soft insulated lunch bag, the kind of swimcap that doesn’t pull hair.

So I asked her where she bought her son’s backpack. She told me where I could buy a backpack for $15, at a store six blocks from my house. I went; I chose the blue one; I bought.

It’s one of Life’s True Rules: take advantage of someone else’s research.

science; daily life; personal; money

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Tips for cheering yourself up, from 1820.

In 1820, English writer Sydney Smith wrote a letter to an unhappy friend, Lady Morpeth, in which he offered her tips for cheering up. His suggestions are as sound now as they were almost 200 years ago.

“1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life—not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to you friends, but talk of them freely—they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don’t expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana.”

Sunday night, the Big Man and I watched Junebug, and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s an extraordinary movie.

In law school, exams often take the form of “issue-spotters.” The professor presents a story of a few paragraphs, and you have to spot and analyze all the legal issues. They’re exhausting, but also sort of fun.

Well, for me, watching Junebug was a happiness-project issue-spotter. (Another happiness issue-spotter is Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday.)

Happiness questions abound in Junebug: who is happy, and who isn’t, and why; and who is or isn’t contributing to others’ happiness, and how; the role of understanding, forgiveness, forbearance, and blame; and who’s living up to the duty to be happy.

My description makes the movie sound sappy or preachy, but it really isn’t.

Simone Weil wrote, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

Junebug illustrates this truth. The son who probably thinks he’s nobly rebelling against the constraints of conventional family expectations is shown to be selfish and tiresome—and in the end, in a thrilling but absolutely ordinary scene, he manages to rise up. The daughter-in-law who comes off as a silly, lonely chatterbox slowly reveals her strength of character.

Each family member makes decisions that affect everyone’s happiness—not dramatic, Hollywood gestures, but the kinds of decisions that everyone makes, every day. How to react to a new family member. How often to visit your parents. How to comfort someone. Even how to behave when someone enters a room.

There are so many little moments I can’t forget: When the mother Peg says, “Don’t worry about Ashley. She’s a firecracker.” When the husband George cheerfully stands up to sing a solo of “Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling” at a church social. The very last moment of the movie, when George’s wife, Madeleine, reaches out to touch him.

I’m tempted to watch the movie again, tonight. Usually I wouldn’t consider doing that, because it would be a “waste” of time—and yet, one of my resolutions for this month is to “spend out,” to spend, trusting that there will be more. And that includes spending out my time, without worrying about being rigidly efficient. After all, I know that sometimes the things I do when I’m wasting time turn out to be enormously productive.

Aack. I just remembered, I’ve already sent the movie back to NetFlix. Too efficient!

happiness

An important factor in happiness is adaptability. Because we adapt quickly to any improvements, we stop appreciating them and instead take them for granted.

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

For example, a friend spent some time in Russia. Periodically, the hot water stopped working, for weeks at a time. It was a huge inconvenience, of course, but she said that very few experiences have matched the happiness she felt on the days when the hot water started working again. But now that she’s back in the United States, where her hot water has never failed, she never thinks about it.

Well, I’m experiencing this kind of post-deprivation happiness now. I had a forced deprivation when my beloved New York Society Library closed for two weeks for renovations. Today was my first day back.

It’s easy to take Society Library for granted—after all, I’ve been coming here several times a week for seven years.

But this two weeks have given me a new jolt of pleasure. Ah, the library. Just one block from my house. The open stacks. The quiet computer room (and it is quiet—if you dare have a conversation, or worse, talk on your cell phone, well, it’s not nice to contemplate the consequences…)

I love the freedom to get books that might interest me, without having to commit to buying anything. Today I checked out Kraybill’s The Riddle of Amish Culture; Bender’s Plain and Simple; Swandler’s Out of This World—not sure why I feel like reading about the Amish, but I decided to indulge myself. I also got Pinchbeck’s Breaking Open the Head, which a friend recommended, and Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm, which was featured in Slightly Foxed.

When Shakespeare wrote, “And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety/But rather famish them amid their plenty…” he anticipated the arguments made by Barry Schwartz in his recent book, The Paradox of Choice. Schwartz advises: “No matter what you can afford, save great wine for special occasions…a silk blouse a special treat…it’s a way to make sure that you can continue to experience pleasure.”

It may seem artificial to deprive yourself of something deliberately. But at the very least, the hedonic treadmill argues for keeping indulgences in check. A luxury ceases to be a luxury when you experience it often. And even a modest pleasure can be a luxury, if it’s scarce enough—a pleasure like ordering coffee at a restaurant, or buying a book, or watching TV.

The Big Man and I don’t watch much TV. We record The Shield, Lost, The Sopranos, Entourage, and a few other shows on TiVO and watch them together. (He also watches 24 and Alias, but I don’t.)

Now that we don’t just catch whatever happens to be on at a particular time, TV has become a real treat for us—because we rarely watch, and because it’s always excellent when we do watch. Also, along with deprivation, a key to happiness is anticipation, and now we can really look forward to lying in bed (yes, we watch TV in bed against all advice I’ve ever read) and watching a new episode of something.

I wish I could claim that this pattern was the result of careful happiness-project research, but we just lucked into it.

“One is happy as a result of one’s own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness—simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain.” George Sand