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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 read a fascinating article by Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness, about a study showing that people who wrote about how they might never have met and fallen in love with their sweethearts had a bigger jump in happiness than those who wrote about how they did meet and fall in love.
Apparently, contemplating the fact that a key event might never have happened, at all, makes it more surprising and mysterious. Just think how close you came to having a different fate – your life could have gone in another direction, so easily! The absolutely brilliant, enthralling novel The Post-Birthday World, by Lionel Shriver, explores this notion at length in an utterly gripping way, as does the movie Sliding Doors.
Lyubomirsky points out that surprise, novelty, challenge, and variety are associated with intense emotion and vivid experience.
I’ve certainly been convinced of that, myself. One thing that surprised me in my own happiness project is the truth of the proposition that Novelty and challenge bring happiness. When I started my project, I expected that this wouldn’t hold true for me, because I love mastery and routine. Well, I was wrong. To test the idea that with novelty and challenge bring happiness, I started this blog, and it has brought me immeasurable happiness.
After reading about this study, I thought for a few minutes about how my life would be different, now, if I didn’t have my blog. I did get a major happiness boost from realizing that phew, I do have my blog. Then I thought about what would have happened if I hadn’t met my husband. What an unhappy prospect! I got a surge of happiness and relief from knowing that we did meet each other. (We met because our library carrels were back-to-back; what if we’d been assigned to opposite ends of the room?)
Imagining life without your sweetheart (or your blog, or your cat, or whatever) also inspires gratitude. It’s challenging to feel grateful for the familiar elements of everyday life, but imagining their absence inspires thankfulness and awe.
So take a moment to imagine that something good never happened. Do you feel happier?
* Zoikes, check out this video of someone drawing two portraits, simultaneously, one with each hand. Coincidentally, the artist dedicates the video to the movie The Shawshank Redemption, which I've never seen -- despite the fact that many people have told me that it's in the Top Ten of happiness movies. I just read Stephen King's short story, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," so am now ready to watch the movie.
* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 26,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (sorry about that weird format – trying to to thwart spammers.) Just write “newsletter” in the subject line. It’s free.
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Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Nine tips for having a good bad day.
A few days ago, I was extremely upset. It’s too complicated to explain the whole situation, but an encounter left me feeling anxious, agitated, under attack, and sad. I did what I could to resolve the situation, but I still felt terrible.
When I have a day like this, I try to make it a Good Bad Day. I take the steps that tend to make me feel better or, if they don’t make me feel better, at least give me the kind of day on which I can look back with satisfaction.
To have a Good Bad Day, I made sure to:
1. Exercise. For me, exercise is a key element to managing my moods. It calms me and energizes me at the same time. Its rituals are comforting. It’s productive but not intellectually or socially demanding. Also, exercise is so obviously a key to good health that if I manage to exercise, I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile in my day, no matter what else happens.
2. Do something nice for someone else. The first part of the Second Splendid Truth is “One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy” (also known as the “Do good, feel good” provision). I sent out some emails that I knew would be useful for other people. Doesn’t sound like much, but it took a lot out of me.
3. Stop ruminating. My inclination was to go over and over the details of the upsetting episode and to conduct imaginary arguments. Instead, I tried to keep my resolution to Find an area of refuge. Studies show that dwelling on negative thoughts amplifies their power in your mind. In fact, some researchers suggest that a reason that more women get depression than men is that women are more likely to “overthink,” while men are better at distracting themselves from negative thoughts.
4. Connect with someone important to me. I called my sister.
5. Tackle a nagging task. Crossing things off a to-do list is energizing and cheering. I took the time to clear my desk – not just physically removing piles of papers, but also doing the tasks that the papers represented. Copying research notes from various sources, making a dentist’s appointment, and making progress on my blog re-design gave me a feeling of control and accomplishment.
6. Do something silly and lighthearted with my children. I videotaped my four-year-old as she danced and sang in her mermaid costume with her new mermaid doll, and we had a family bubble-blowing extravaganza. And throughout all these steps, I tried to…
7. Act the way I want to feel. Research shows that although we think that we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. I get worked up very easily, but I tried to act cheerful instead of allowing myself to get agitated, wring my hands, etc. My mother often reminds me, “Stay calm,” and I need that advice frequently.
8. Ask for help. I said to my husband, "I really need to talk to you. I'm really upset, I want to tell you what happened today and talk to you about it, okay?" Being a sympathetic listener isn't my husband's strongest point, and truth be told, he wasn't very comforting -- but I think that by explaining that I needed him to try to do his best to help, I did help him do the best he could.
But nothing really worked. I still felt lousy. So I made sure to…
8. Go to sleep early. It’s true, everything does look better in the morning. Also, the longer I work on my happiness project, the more importance I give to sleep. Getting enough sleep just makes a tremendous difference to happiness.
When I woke up the next morning, I felt better. The situation still upsets me, but not as much as it did. When I have a bad day, it helps to have a good bad day.
Have you found any strategies for making a bad day better? What works for you?
* This post from Pamela Slim on Escape From Cubicle Nation really got me thinking: "Scrappy content can juice up your brand". Once again, I'm reminded of the wisdom of Voltaire's admonishment, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Plus I loved spotting the brilliant Communicatrix there, too.
* Check out the Happiness Project Toolbox. It's fun, it's addictive, it's free, and it will boost your happiness.
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My fellow Huffington Post contributor Karen Leland is an expert on increasing efficiency and happiness at work, so she spends a lot of time thinking about how people can manage their time to get the most satisfaction and productivity out of their workweek.
She has a new book out, Time Management in an Instant
. I love this approach—thinking about how accomplishing manageable, concrete tasks can make a difference in your daily life. It seems to me that feeling out of control of time is a major happiness challenge for many people.
Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Karen: Keeping my home, office, and e-mail relatively organized. While it might sound trivial, when I know where things are and can find them easily, I stay out of overwhelm. For me, overwhelm is a definite happiness stressor.
What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
That it's not a constant condition, and it's not supposed to be. The amount of happiness I experience ebbs, and flows and that's OK. Sometimes I'm superjoyful, sometimes content, and sometimes down. It's a cycle, and it all changes.
Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
I'm embarrassed to say that I still have a tendency to compare myself to others with some degree. It's not as bad as it was in my youth, but it's one of the patterns I need to continually fight.
Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”)
Yes, my happiness mantra is "Follow my own path and truth, and trust that the right people and results will appear. Be grateful when they do."
If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost?
Three things are guaranteed to give me a happiness boost:
1. Singing along to any musical.
2. Talking to my girlfriends on the phone.
3. Doing something new, creative, and fun in the kitchen.
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?
The people I know who are happiest seem to protect their time and space. In other words, they don't spend a lot of time doing things that they don't want to do, or being with people they don't want to be with. They also say what they mean and mean what they say. The unhappiest are those who are blaming others for their woes and can't seem to shake off being bitter about a wrong that was done to them.
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?
When I got divorced from my first husband 25 years ago, I went through the unhappiest period in my life. The grief and unhappiness were profound, but that experience really taught me a lot. Since then, I would say my level of happiness goes up and down, but always seems to settle in the same place. Whenever I'm in what I consider to be a less happier place, I do things to fill the tank of my happiness. For me that is art, cooking, being with friends, spending time with my husband (no. 2 for 17 years), singing, and being in nature. All of those things fill me up in a way that can shake me out of my unhappiness—usually.
Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
I would say that I work on being more content. In other words, I try and take things as they come and not get too caught up in how it is on any given day. Recently, I've been working on being more serene—which to me is a form of happiness. I do this by simply stopping and taking a breather, when I start to feel anxious or stressed. I find that if I let something upsetting sit a bit, its unhappy quality diminishes—at least somewhat.
Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy didn’t—or vice versa?
You know that expression "Be careful what you ask for, young lady, for you shall surely get it"? Yes, I have often thought something was going to make me very happy, and it made me crazy! Then again, there are things I have gone into that I had no expectation about, and they have turned out to be among the happiest experiences of my life. I think in many ways having an expectation about how happy something will make me is a setup for failure. For me, I think it's better to bring my best self to something, which includes my enthusiasm, but stay away from expecting it to bring me a certain level of happiness and just be open to the whatever the experience delivers.
* Zoikes, this is happy news: I just found out that the blog search engine Technorati ranks this blog among the Top 2,000 blogs. Given that as of December 2007, Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs, that sounds pretty good.
* If you haven't watched my one-minute movie, The Years Are Short, you might enjoy seeing that.
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I'm quick-tempered, and one of my greatest happiness-project challenges is to bite my tongue; an excellent way to boost my happiness is to keep my resolution to "Leave things unsaid." In the end, I'm always happier when I don't make some angry or snarky comment. But easier said than done.
This is particularly difficult with my husband. Even when I manage to leave some comment unsaid three times, four times, five times, often a version of that comment pops out of my mouth in a weak moment.
I've made big strides in this area since I started my happiness project, but I still have a long way to go.
Mindfulness is the key, but my challenge is to find a way to be mindful in an angry, annoyed, or hurt moment. When I remember to "count to 10," I can usually manage to do it, but often I say something I regret before it even occurs to me to count to 10. One of the reasons that St. Therese of Lisieux is my spiritual master is that she writes so well about the struggle to leave things unsaid.
The best way to leave things unsaid is to leave them unthought, or if I've thought them, not to dwell on them. I've noticed—no surprise—that the more clearly, and the more often, I've articulated some grudge or criticism in my mind, the more likely I'll give voice to it.
Have you found any good ways to count to 10, to leave things unsaid, to keep yourself from ruminating?
Self-mastery. As Leonardo da Vinci wrote, "One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself."
* Yet another happiness-project group is forming! I’m especially thrilled to see this one starting, because it’s in my own neighborhood of Manhattan. Check out the Facebook Group or e-mail NYCHappiness@live.com for more information, and if you know someone who might be interested, please pass along the link.
* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 26,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (sorry about that weird format—trying to to thwart spammers.) Just write “newsletter” in the subject line. It’s free.
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“Dare to be wise! Begin now. The man who puts off the day when he will live rightly is like the peasant who waits for the river to drain away. But it flows on, and will flow on for ever.”—Horace, Epistles
* I always find a huge amount of thought-provoking material on Seth Godin's blog.
* If you haven't watched my one-minute movie, The Years Are Short, you might enjoy seeing that.
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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.
One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “It’s OK to ask for help,” and one of my resolutions is “Ask for help.” Why I find this simple act so difficult, I don’t know. But I know that other people do, too—for example, the excellent Marci Alboher just wrote about how to ask for help.
I don’t like to admit I don’t know something or understand how to do something, and I feel even more uncomfortable and sheepish when I ask for help promoting my work. I was comforted when I read this confession in Samuel Butler’s Note-Books
: “I was nearly forty before I felt how stupid it was to pretend to know things that I did not know and I still often catch myself doing so.”
The thing is, asking for help really ... helps. It makes my life a lot easier and more pleasant. And that makes me happier.
So now I’m going to ask for help getting the word out about The Happiness Project.
If you’re so inclined, it would be a huge help if you’d forward the link to this blog to three people who might be interested. Do you know someone facing a happiness challenge? Someone very interested in the subject of happiness? Word of mouth is the best recommendation; people really respect their friends’ suggestions.
Also, if you’re inclined to buy the book The Happiness Project, it would a huge help if you’d pre-order it. The book hasn’t hit the shelves yet, but early interest brings all sorts of benefits for a book. Buzz at the beginning really matters.
So, phew, I did it. I asked for help. Not just one kind of help, but two!
Asking for help boosts happiness, because not only does it make your life easier, it demonstrates that you have a social network that supports you. What’s more, asking for help is a sign of relationship and trust. As Benjamin Franklin recommended, “If you want to make a friend, let someone do you a favor.” I remember someone at work telling me, “I never liked that guy until he asked to borrow $50. Then I realized he must consider me a friend, and presto! I started liking him.”
Also, by asking for help, you’re boosting other people’s happiness. Studies show that for happiness, providing support is just as important as getting support. Often, people like to help. I know I like to help. That’s Part A of the Second Splendid Truth, also known as “Do good, feel good.”
Do you find it difficult to ask for help? When you do ask for help, does it make you happier?
* On Gimundo I found this happy video of fun with sticky notes—by EepyBird, the same people who did the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment.
* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.
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Every Wednesday is Tip Day—or Quiz Day.
This Wednesday: Are you drifting?
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the problem of “drift”—the decision you make by not deciding, or by making a decision that unleashes consequences for which you don’t take responsibility.
The responses I got—comments on my blog, in my e-mail, and on the Facebook Page—showed me that a lot of people have also suffered from drift.
One of the problems of drift is that we try to deny we’re drifting. Take this quiz: How many of these statements apply to you, in your current situation? The more checks you make, the greater your risk for being adrift.
__ I often have the peculiar feeling that I’m living someone else’s life.
__ I often think, “This situation can’t go on,” but then it does go on.
__ I spend a lot of time daydreaming about a completely different life as an escape from what I’m doing now.
__ I find myself getting very angry if someone challenges the values that I think I’m working toward. (E.g., working like crazy as a fifth-year associate at a law firm, and furious if someone argues that money and security aren’t important.)
__ I complain about my situation, but I don’t spend much time trying to figure out ways to make it better. In fact…
__ I fantasize that some catastrophe or upheaval will blow up my situation. I’ll break my leg or get transferred to another city.
__ I find myself having disproportionate reactions. (For example, I have a friend who wasn't admitting to herself that she wanted to be an actor, and she decided to give it a shot after she started crying when someone started talking about acting.)
__ I feel like other people or processes are moving events forward, and I’m just passively carried along.
__ I find myself doing or getting something because the people around me are doing it or want it.
__ There is something in my life about which I used to be passionate, but now I never allow myself to indulge in it. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable even thinking about it.
__ I’ve justified certain actions on my part by assuring myself, “I might as well,” “It can’t hurt,” “This might be useful,” “This will keep my options open,” “I can always decide later,” “I can always change my mind,” “Nothing is forever,” “How bad can it be?”
According to the First Splendid Truth, to be happier, you need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
Of these four elements, “feeling right” is the hardest to explain. “Feeling right” is feeling like you’re leading the life you’re meant to live; that you’re living up to your expectations for yourself; that you feel comfortable with the life you’ve chosen.
Feeling right might mean being in the right career. One reason I left law was that I was haunted by the feeling that I was…on a tangent, off-center. I can’t describe it any other way. There I was, clerking for Justice O’Connor, and I was haunted by a feeling that it was all a digression. From what, to what? That’s what I had to figure out.
Some people don’t “feel right” because they don’t have the family situation they want, or the financial situation they expected. Or they’re not spending their time on something that’s important to them. My Manhattan-raised college roommate didn’t “feel right” about living in the Midwest; she tried and tried, but her life there just didn’t feel right.
I think “feeling right” is especially susceptible to outside pressures. We drift into certain decisions because other people approve of them. Your sense of what is right for you becomes clouded by what other people think is right. You drift into medical school because your parents will be pleased. You drift into marriage because all your friends are getting married. You drift into a job because someone offers you that job. You want the respect of the people around you, or you want to avoid a fight or a bout of insecurity, so you take the path of least resistance. That’s drift.
The word "drift" has overtones of laziness or ease. Not true! Drift is often disguised by a huge amount of effort and perseverance. Just because you're working hard is no guarantee that you're not drifting. For me, law school was drift, and it was hard every step of the way, from the LSAT to the New York Bar exam. In the end, I'm happy I did go to law school -- and that's another tricky thing about drift. Sometimes drift does make you happy. But don't count on it.
One of my drift-related Secrets of Adulthood is "You can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do." And here's a new one: "Approval from the people we admire is sweet, but it’s not enough to be the foundation of a happy life."
It comes back, as always, to a fundamental truth about happiness, and my First Commandment: Be Gretchen. (Feel free to substitute your own name.) In order to be happy, I have to know myself and build my life around my own nature.
Have you found yourself drifting? How did you start, how did you end it—or not?
* Another happiness-project group is starting up! This one is in the San Francisco Bay area. If you’re interested, go to the Facebook Group for more information – and please forward the link to anyone in San Francisco who might want to join.
* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.
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One of the things I enjoy most about blogging for RealSimple.com is all the great people I’ve met—both the folks who work at RealSimple.com and the other bloggers who write for Simply Stated.
At a lunch at Real Simple, I was very excited to get to meet Tamar Weinberg, an expert in social media and viral marketing who is a ubiquitous online figure. As always, when I meet someone whom I know from blogland, it was a bit of a shock to see her in person. There she was, a real live human being! And she looked so much like her photo! Plus she was pregnant, which was such a real-life thing to do.
Tamar has a book that is just hitting the shelves, The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web
. It’s an outstanding resource for anyone who wants to make sense of the potential of the “social Web”—blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Flickr, Facebook, etc. These worlds are changing so fast; it’s hard to keep up, even when you’re very engaged.
I was interested to see what Tamar had to say about happiness: how would an intense workaholic handle having a new baby, and not only that, having that baby just two months before her first book is coming out? A challenging situation.
Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Tamar: I can't say there's anything specific that makes me happier. I just gave birth to a baby boy 8 weeks ago—he's my first—and I'm totally enjoying being with him and bonding with him. But besides just being with my baby, I love the work I do in the social-media-marketing and community-management realm. I've had these late-night revelations that keep me up all night writing my thoughts down on paper and getting totally excited to kick-start my day.
What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
Even if something really gets you down, you can pull through it and be stronger than ever.
Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
I find myself believing that I could do more than what's allowable and physically doable in a 24-hour period. I wish that days were 50 hours long.
Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you find very helpful? Or a particular book that has stayed with you?
Not in particular. But I'm reading blogs every day and always find inspiration in others' words.
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.)
Usually loud, angry music works for me. (Nope, happy music won't do!) I haven't felt blue since my son was born, but I imagine that he'll be able to pull me out of it.
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?
I think family adds to happiness and detracts from happiness. (I mean that in the utmost serious but jovial way!)
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?
Being around people I care about always makes me happy. I also don't mind a change of scenery. In the business front, it's always been great to attend conferences where I can network with new people and spend time with old colleagues.
Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
I really should. As with everything, there's room for improvement. And having a new 24/7 role isn't entirely stress-free!
Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t—or vice versa?
Honestly, I approached parenthood with incredible fear and anxiety. I am now so happy to be a mother.
* A new happiness-project group is launching in the Chicago area! If you live around there and are interested in joining, click here for more information. (I love the photo chosen to illustrate their intro page.)
* If you want to work on your happiness project by yourself (instead of, or in addition to, being part of a group), check out the Happiness Project Toolbox. Tons of fun, if I say so myself.
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As I’ve thought about happiness, I’ve been struck by the many paradoxes of happiness. I want to Be Gretchen and accept myself, and I also want to perfect my nature. I want to think about myself, so I can forget myself. I want to lighten up, but also take myself more seriously.
I’ve discovered another paradox of happiness, and it’s one of the most important: I want to create my own independent happiness, apart from other people, so I can connect with other people.
This paradox started to become clear to me as I reflected on a haunting passage from Bob Dylan’s strange, brilliant memoir, Chronicles: Volume One
. He wrote: “I looked at the menu, then I looked at my wife. The one thing about her that I always loved was that she was never one of those people who thinks that someone else is the answer to their happiness. Me or anybody else. She’s always had her own built-in happiness.”
This is what I’m striving for—to have my own “built-in happiness.” An emotional self-sufficiency. Not to depend on other people to boost me up or to let them drag me down.
However, it’s true that ancient philosophers and modern scientists agree that a key—perhaps the key—to happiness is strong relationships. Other people matter to our happiness. If you have five or more friends with whom to discuss an important matter, you’re far more likely to describe yourself as “very happy.” Having strong relationships lengthens life (even more than quitting smoking!) and cuts the risk of depression. Even a brief interaction with another person tends to boost your mood—this is true for introverts as well as extroverts.
And when we’re with other people, we affect each other’s happiness. Emotional contagion describes the fact that we “catch” good moods and bad moods from each other. (Unfortunately, bad moods are more contagious than good moods.) Married people are very affected by each other’s happiness; a thirty percent increase in one spouse’s happiness boosts the other spouse’s happiness, while a drop in one spouse’s happiness drags down the other.
But more and more, I’ve been trying to resist emotional contagion, and also the impulse to allow someone or something—most often, my husband, my children, or my work—to have a big impact on my happiness. I try to carry my own atmosphere of happiness with me. As Goethe said, "I am the decisive element. ... It is my daily mood that makes the weather."
This paradox leads me back, yet again, to the 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.
By working to maintain my own “built-in happiness,” I’ll be better able to help the people around me to be happy. My happiness will lift them up. Plus I won’t be a happiness vampire who sucks happy energy from other people or who craves a life-blood of praise, affirmation, or reassurance to support my happiness. (Ah, my struggle to rise above gold stars continues.)
But to have my own “built-in happiness” is a challenge. Have you found any good ways to keep yourself emotionally self-sufficient, without isolating yourself?
* This is FABULOUS: a reporter for the TucsonCitizen.com is launching a Tucscon happiness-project group on that website. I can't wait to see how it goes.
* Speaking of happiness-project groups, if you'd like to start a group, sign up here to get your starter-kit.
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“I am not much given to playing ‘If I had’ of ‘If I hadn’t,’ much preferring to stay with ‘It would have happened anyway.’ But that last is usually a lie, and I am not one to kid myself. I am sorry I went to Paris, because when I returned I was full of myself and starved for more of me. Or am I sorry? I do not know. I am mixed up. But I do know that there have been many years when I wished I could have walked into that little group at the airport, never to emerge again. I see them—the husband who looked like Montgomery Clift in his Harrods’ raincoat, the nurse in her white uniform, the little girl dancing in her hair ribbons, and the baby bulwarked in her diapers—and they haunt me, still there, still waiting at Kennedy.”
—Mary Cantwell, Manhattan, When I Was Young
* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.
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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.
This Friday’s resolution: Cultivate friends of different ages.
I’ve read so much happiness research that now I often remember some fact or study without being able to figure out where I read it.
I’m pretty sure that I read about a study that showed that people who have friends of different ages tend to be happier than people who have friends of the same age, but I can’t find the cite. So I will just say from the authority of my own experience: it boosts happiness to have friends of different ages.
Take Tuesday night, midnight. I went to the very first U.S. showing of the movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
.
I’m a huge raving Harry Potter fan, but I also have two little kids, and I don’t often spend an evening in a way that keeps me out until 4:00 a.m. Most of my friends are about my age, in fairly similar circumstances in how they conduct their lives, and they keep the same schedule.
But I have some younger, child-free, zestful friends, who think that going to a midnight show is fun, that getting in line at the movie theater at 6:30 p.m. is fun, that eating a picnic dinner in the theater lobby while you’re waiting for a midnight movie is fun. And it is fun!
Making time for fun makes people happier. Adrian Gostick’s very interesting book, The Levity Effect
, reviews research that shows that regularly having fun is a key factor in having a happy life; people who have fun are twenty times more likely to feel happy.
Also, people who have novel experiences are happier than those who stay in a routine. If my friends hadn’t planned the outing to the midnight showing, I never would have gone on my own. Having younger friends, who have fun in different ways from me, gave me a great night.
Same thing with older friends. People of different ages have different experiences, different schedules, different bases of knowledge, and different tastes. By having friends of different ages, you broaden the range of your life.
Of course, you can’t just announce, “Now I’m going to make friends of different ages” and make some. Friendship doesn’t work like that. (Here are some tips for making friends.) But it’s something to think about, as you make time for friendship in your day; remember not to let your circle gradually narrow down until you only see people who are in step with you—even though it’s usually most convenient to spend time with those people, because at the very least, you share the same bedtime.
Have you found that having friends of different ages—or different in other ways, as well, not just in age—has boosted your happiness?
* Speaking of fun, for little fun, here's a video of—well, of someone doing hand tricks. It's more fun than it sounds.
* If you’re interested in doing your own happiness project, check out the Happiness Project Toolbox.
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I realized that I’ve never done a post about my Four Splendid Truths, although I think about them all the time.
I named these realizations the “Four Splendid Truths” because I was reading a lot about Buddhism when I started to come up with the list.
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: parasol, golden fish, treasure vase, lotus, conch shell, endless knot, victory banner, and dharma wheel. (After I formulated the First Splendid Truth, I just had to assume that I’d end up with more than one.)
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 managed to identify it. 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 the link to see my one-minute movie.)
Fourth Splendid Truth
You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy. Corollary: You’re happy if 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.]
Now I’m trying to come up with my personal eight auspicious symbols for happiness. Let’s see—bluebird, ruby slippers, dice, blood, roses ... hmmm. I will have to keep thinking about that.
* Ah, I love the blog Zen Habits.
* If you like the blog, you'll love the book! Pre-order The Happiness Project.
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I've started a feature—the True Rules series. These are concrete lessons that come out of people's specific experiences. Whether you agree with these rules or not, they’re fun to consider.
When I was visiting the brilliant Debbie Stier at HarperStudio, which is part of the house that is publishing my book (did I mention I have a book coming out
?), president and publisher Bob Miller stopped by her office.
I was filming Debbie giving her True Rule, Rock the Boat, and Bob immediately got in the spirit of the endeavor and agreed to give me his True Rule, too.
If you can’t watch the video, Bob says, “My True Rule is that persistence is its own reward. Somehow, the more you stay with something, the more you accumulate wisdom and meaning in whatever it is you're doing. Just by watering that flower, you get really attached to that flower."
* Of all the blogs I read, one of my very favorite is Unclutterer, and I loved this post about having it all—key points for a happy life.
* Check out the Happiness Project Toolbox! You can post your own resolutions and insights about happiness -- and read what other people have posted. Addictive.
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One thing I hear quite often is “It’s awful, people are so materialistic. They think that buying things can make them happy, but it can’t.”
Well, that statement contains more than one idea. The first is “Money can’t buy happiness.” True, money can’t buy happiness, but spent wisely, it can contribute mightily to a happy life.
The other idea is that people are too materialistic—meaning, I think, that people place too much value on owning things and showing them off to others in order to make an impression.
I’ve been mulling over that proposition. One of the subjects that has fascinated me for a very long time is the relationship of people to objects. I went through a long obsession with potlatch. I wrote a book, Profane Waste
, examining why people would destroy their own possessions. I’ve read a lot of books about subjects like conspicuous consumption and self-identity through brands. I’m interested in anything to do with the symbolic meaning of particular objects (the Greek herm, for example), which is one reason I love Jung’s work.
So I’ve always been interested in this topic. But it seems to me that a lot of behavior that people consider “materialistic” is actually motivated not by a wish to boost self-esteem through stuff or to show off possessions to other people—in a “Keep up with the Joneses” kind of way—but by other reasons.
For example, take the guy who always buys the latest tech gadget – not from a desire to show that he can afford the most expensive new device but to feed his fascination with technology and perhaps also to maintain his reputation as a maven, the person to whom everyone can go for advice.
Take the couple who constantly renovate their house by adding a deck, adding a garden, putting in a new kitchen—not to show off to the neighbors, but as a way to get an atmosphere of growth in their lives. They see their house getting nicer, and that gives them satisfaction.
Take the person who buys beautiful furniture. My mother, who has a tremendous appreciation for objects and a huge amount of expertise on what gives objects quality, would appreciate and acquire beautiful furniture even if she were the last person on earth.
Clothes are a puzzle. Some people appreciate beautiful clothes for their own sake; it’s not all about making a display for other people, though that’s part of it, too. Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary
: “I must remember to write about my clothes next time I have an impulse to write. My love of clothes interests me profoundly; only it is not love; and what it is I must discover.” Is this materialistic?
For better or worse, buying things is a way to engage with them and with the world. If you’re interested in a certain kind of object, you often express that interest by researching, shopping, and buying it. People who can’t afford art go to museums. But when people who like art can afford it, they usually want to buy art, too. People who love to cook want to buy elaborate tools and ingredients. People who love music want to buy music.
For some reason, we like to own the things we love, even when it’s not necessary. I’m interested in reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
only every so often, and the neighborhood library has three copies on its shelves—yet I want my own copy. Is that “materialistic?” (It will be interesting to see if the Internet will change this impulse, at least for books, movies, and music.)
It’s also true that when we have these things, we want to show them to other people. Is that always conspicuous consumption?
And objects can be necessary apparatus for other things we want to build into our lives, like exploration, acquisition of knowledge, and sense of security.
The word materialistic can be defined in various ways, of course, and some behavior is truly “materialistic” in the negative sense and not very admirable. But I think it’s a term that is thrown around a lot, to cover behavior that isn’t as deplorable as often assumed.
But I’m still thinking through this and not sure of my conclusions so far. The relationship between people and objects—an inexhaustibly fascinating topic. What angles am I overlooking?
* I love Lisa Belkin's New York Times blog Motherlode, and I particularly appreciated this guest post by Laura Vanderkam, Are You Being Too Efficient? It struck a chord; my resolutions include Take time for projects and Force myself to wander.
* Check out the Happiness Project Toolbox! If you want to get started with your own happiness project, you'll find eight free tools that will help you. And it's a lot of fun.
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“To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.… Let him take a course of chymistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.”—Samuel Johnson
* A thoughtful reader told me about this wonderful artist's blog: Color Me Katie. Irresistible.
* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.
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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.
A friend told me this story, and I’ve never forgotten it, though the following anecdote about G. Gordon Liddy may not, in fact, be true; I’ve never verified it. According to my friend, Liddy once held his hand over a candle flame until his flesh burned. Someone asked, “What’s your secret?” and he replied, “The secret is not to care.”
I think about this phrase constantly: “The secret is not to care.” Because if I don’t want to let certain things make me unhappy, the secret is not to care. (Not to mention not caring about the weird grammar of the phrase.)
Recently a friend explained that although she doesn’t enjoy getting manicures, she has to get them, because her hands must look nice for work (she has a fancy job). The last time I had a manicure was two years ago when my sister got married, and I know that even if I had my friend’s job, I wouldn’t get manicures. I just don’t care, and because I don’t care, I don’t believe that other people care much either.
Another friend is honestly worried because his children don’t have very adventurous tastes in foods. Again, I just don’t care about that, so that worry doesn’t make a difference to me. Of course, I care about things that other people don’t care about.
I think this “secret” is important, because while we can’t exercise complete control over the things we care about, we can take notice, remember that some of our concerns are idiosyncratic, and try to master them where appropriate. Mindfulness! Yikes, mindfulness turns out to be important everywhere I look. (Wondering how mindful you are? I’m not very. Here's a quiz.)
Often I invoke this phrase, “The secret is not to care,” in a context where I find myself worrying about what other people will think. When I feel myself fussing about something, I ask myself, “Do I really care? Or is the secret not to care?”
I felt myself caring about the fact that my four-year-old often goes to school wearing hideous outfits. She loves to pick out her own clothes and tends to choose eye-popping combinations. I found myself wanting to explain to everyone, “She chose that herself! I didn’t match that shirt with those pants!” Then I realized – the secret is not to care. Why shouldn’t she pick out her own clothes to please herself? Why should I care? I don’t care. And I let it go.
This observation by Samuel Johnson keeps springing to my mind: “Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.”
Accordingly, I’m not “setting too high a value” upon coordinated outfits on a pre-schooler, “by which no real excellence is conferred.” The secret is not to care.
Have you found yourself caring about things you don’t really care about? How do you address it?
* I see on Gimundo that the New Economics Foundation ranked Costa Rica as the world's happiest country. Interesting.
* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.
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One of the happiness-project resolutions that I’ve found to be most effective—and also the most fun—is to Join or start a group. Since I started my happiness project, I’ve joined or started seven groups, each of which has added dramatically to my happiness.
Some people are interested in starting or joining a group for people doing happiness projects—to my astonishment, more than 2,000 people have sent for the starter kit for people launching such a group. (Click here if you'd like to sign up for a kit yourself.)
I’m wildly interested in what these groups are doing, so am thrilled whenever I hear news. There are groups forming in cities like Dallas/Fort Worth, Boston, Gainesville, Fla.—even Singapore!
Nicole’s group, in Enid, Okla., has more than forty members (incredible). Nicole suggested that everyone begin by deciding on three or four resolutions, and she offered several great suggestions about making an effective resolution (start small; keep it concrete; hold yourself accountable by keeping a chart, whether online at the Happiness Project Toolbox or on paper), and she offered her own resolutions as an example:
1. Meditate for at least 10 minutes each day.
2. Exercise at least twice per week.
3. Choose my arguments more wisely.
4. Take more notes so I do not forget things so easily.
Nicole made another excellent point to the Enid group, which I echo in different words in my Secrets of Adulthood. She reminded everyone, “Remember, you’ll only get out of this what you’re willing to put in!” Very true. (My version is “No deposit, no return.”)
Michael’s group in L.A. has an unexpected geographic challenge: thirty-two people are interested in joining the group, and they’re spread all across the vast L.A. area. To keep the drive easier for people, Michael has suggested that they break into two groups, to keep meeting as convenient as possible. Very smart! Convenience matters a lot! However, having a committed leader matters a lot, too, so I hope someone steps forward to lead the new, second group if it forms.
Dani is launching a group in the Washington, D.C., area. If you’re interested in joining, e-mail her at positivepresent@gmail.com. Her excellent blog is Positively Present.
Group leaders, please do join the Facebook Discussion Page for group leaders. From time to time, I’d like able to contact you directly—for instance, I’m sending you all a little surprise in the mail this week—and if you’re on that page, I’ll be able to find you.
What about the tri-state area (New York, Connecticut, New Jersey)? I live in New York City and would love to see a happiness-project group form in my own backyard. If you’ve started one, let me know! Maybe I can come to the kick-off meeting.
* I was interested to see this Marriage Calculator at Divorce360. My result? "People with similar backgrounds who are already divorced: 14%. People with similar backgrounds who will be divorced over the next five years: 3%." Apparently that puts me at average risk for divorce.
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I just finished a very engaging book, Richard Stengel’s You're Too Kind: A Brief History of Flattery
. I wish I’d had this book as a resource when I was writing my first book, Power Money Fame Sex
. It’s a treasure trove of anecdotes and observations about flattery—a topic that comes up with some frequency when you’re writing about money, power, fame, and sex.
The book is history and social criticism, but at the end, Stengel includes a list called “How to flatter without getting caught.”
To put flattery in a happier context, I adapted his list to focus on giving good praise rather than flattery. Now, what’s the difference between flattery and praise? Flattery is strategic; it’s praise given for a self-serving reason. But many of the same rules apply:
1. Be specific. Vague praise doesn’t make much of an impression.
2. Find a way to praise sincerely. It’s a rare situation where you can’t identify something that you honestly find praiseworthy.
3. Never offer praise and ask for a favor in the same conversation. It makes the praise seem like a setup.
4. Don’t overpraise. Keep it credible and realistic.
5. Look for something less obvious to praise, a more obscure accomplishment or quality that a person hasn’t heard praised many times before.
6. Don’t hesitate to praise people who get a lot of praise already. I’ve noticed this myself: Even people who get constant praise—or perhaps especially people who get constant praise—crave yet more praise. Is this because praise-worthy people are often insecure? Or does getting praise lead to a need for more praise? I’m not sure, but it seems often to be the case.
7. Praise people behind their backs. The praised person usually hears about the praise, and behind-the-back praise seems more sincere than face-to-face praise.
8. Beware when a person asks for your honest opinion. This is often a clue that they're seeking reassurance, not candor.
9. Don’t damn with faint praise. “You were so lousy when you started—you’ve really come a long way” or “You did a much better job than I expected” is not praise that will warm people’s hearts.
Because the way we feel is very much influenced by the way we act, by acting in a way that shows appreciation, discernment, and thoughtfulness, we make ourselves feel more appreciative, discerning, and thoughtful. And that boosts happiness.
Have you thought of any other good ways for giving people praise? As my mother once wisely pointed out to me, "Most people probably don't get the appreciation they deserve." Very true, and therefore ...
... if you're grappling with the opposite problem—of not getting enough praise yourself—check out these Five tips for dealing with feeling unappreciated. I'm a praise junkie myself, so I have tried all these strategies. With mixed success.
* Non sequitur: Today is July 8, 2009. At six seconds after 4:05 a.m. this morning, the time was 04:05:06 07-08-09. Shoot, I slept right through it.
* Lots of great discussion on the Facebook Page. Check it out!
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From time to time, I post short interviews with interesting people about their insights on happiness. During my research, I’ve noticed that I often learn more from one person’s highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies.
I recently read a terrific new novel by Sally Koslow, The Late, Lamented Molly Marx
. It has a very interesting premise, which I don’t want to give away, but I will say that it explores an important aspect of happiness.
I raced through the book because I was enjoying it so much (it’s packed with sharp social observation, plus it paints a wonderful picture of New York City), so only after I’d finished it did I realize that the book is a great examination of drift.
In the novel, Molly has a life with her husband and young daughter, and she's also having an affair. She loves and hates her life with her husband; same with the affair. She can’t decide whether to divorce her husband and marry her lover or to end the affair, and she begins to drift in this state. Both fates have their appeal, and their cost.
Molly’s situation is resolved in a surprising way, which I won’t reveal, but it got me thinking about drift. I was interested to see what Sally Koslow would have to say about happiness.
Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Sally: Besides reading novels, which I love so much I decided to try and write one? Dancing, at which I most certainly do not excel, makes me giddy-happy if I’m hearing the right music, even if I’m alone in my kitchen alternating the same two moves my kids mock. So does escaping into a movie trussed-up with corsets and English accents or a well-written contemporary rom-com. Every time I watch Diane Keaton grin to herself while she’s pounding away on her computer in Something's Gotta Give
, a movie I can probably lip synch, I want to do the same.
Some activities make me happy once they’re over. I can’t say I adore running, but several times a week I take myself to the park for a long jog and invariably, when the rubber hits the road, my brain manufactures dialogue, plot points, and metaphors, and as e.e. cummings wrote, the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.
Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
Procrastination screws with my happiness, even though I know I get a contact high from accomplishment. For me, productivity demands infrastructure. I’d never have been able to complete three novels in the last five years if I hadn’t joined a writing workshop. It gives me feedback, but most important, the group harnesses me to deadlines, without which I’d still be muttering, “Maybe I’ll write a novel!” Being a magazine editor taught me that everyone, for almost everything, requires deadlines. I’m kind of an evangelist about this. Now if only someone would give me a deadline for organizing my photographs.
Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you find very helpful? Or a particular book that has stayed with you?
Thornton Wilder’s Our Town
is my all-time favorite play, and it inspired my current book, The Late, Lamented Molly Marx.
Is there anything that you see people around you doing that detracts a lot from their happiness?
Envy is the buzz-kill of happiness. This is a theme I’m exploring in my next novel, where four women’s friendships wig out when they start tripping over their envy. (The original title was The Schadenfreude Club—we just changed it to With Friends Like These, since not everyone knows the snarky German word, schadenfreude, which means taking pleasure in someone else’s misery.)
I know I’ve wasted too much time on envying people with more money or success. I wish I could say I’ve learned to short-circuit envy, but the best I do is try to minimize contact with happiness-suckers in favor of being with people I appreciate and who appreciate me. I got happier, for example, when my son switched from private to public school, where the parents took fewer vacations to Tuscany. I try to remind myself that while other women may look like they have it all, they may secretly covet X. For all I know, maybe every woman I envy secretly wants to be a novelist.
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 was a cliche high-school and college kid who no doubt looked happy enough but wrote yearning poetry and was often the girl at the party ready to cry. I was shy and didn’t instinctively understand how to make friends. My early role model was Lois Lane, and it helped to cast myself as a reporter for school newspapers, where I was forced to ask people questions. This practice helped, but took me only so far—when I, a North Dakota hayseed, moved to Manhattan to work on Mademoiselle magazine, the culture shock rendered me practically mute. I forced myself to observe women who had a knack for making friends and tried to model their behavior, down to noticing that it’s ordinary good manners to be friendly
During the last eight years, because of dumb luck I’ve lost two editor-in-chief jobs. This crashed my happiness, since I adored my work and believed I was put on earth to edit magazines. To keep my sanity, I started dabbling with writing fiction, which turned into novels—one lost job was running McCall’s, which got turned over to Rosie O’Donnell to start an eponymous magazine. That “you can’t make this stuff up” experience inspired my first novel, Little Pink Slips
. I never expected novel-writing to become my new life’s work, and it has made me as happy as I’ve ever been.
Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy and didn’t?
One of my jobs came with—woo-hoo!—a clothing allowance. Although I’d been devoted to cheap-chic, when I got this perk I threw myself at the mercy of a personal shopper at Bergdorf’s and let her talk me into suits that made me looked like a lady senator, not Sally. I’ll never say money can’t buy a certain peace of mind, but this experience taught me that scoring bargains at H&M makes me happier than posh shopping, which leaves me feeling not pampered, but phony and rip-offed, a sure recipe for unhappiness.
* I'm a big fan of Alexandra Levit's blog Water Cooler Wisdom, which is a terrific resource for "up-to-the-minute career advice from one who has survived the trenches," so I was very pleased to see that she posted about the Happiness Project Toolbox.
* I send out short, free monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 24,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (sorry about that weird format—trying to to thwart spammers.) Just write “newsletter” in the subject line.
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the problem of drift in happiness. Drift is the decision you make by not deciding or by making a decision that unleashes consequences for which you don’t take responsibility. (Drift isn’t an actual psychological term, like situation evocation or emotional contagion; it’s just a word that I use).
I fear drift. Drift feels small, but once unleashed, drift is a powerful, often almost unstoppable, force.
An engaged friend couldn’t have made it more plain that she didn’t want to get married. I asked her, “Imagine that something happened, and you couldn’t get married next month. Your fiancé absolutely had to move to China for a year, alone, or you had to have a big operation. How would you feel?” “Relieved,” she said. And yet she went through with the wedding. She divorced a year later.
I drifted into law school. I didn’t know what else I wanted to do, it seemed like a legitimate, useful way to spend a few years, it would keep my options open…I didn’t really think much about the decision. As it turns out, I’m very glad I went to law school – drift sometimes does lead to a happy result, which contributes to its dangerous appeal—but I didn’t approach law school mindfully. And many, many people who go to law school are not happy they went.
Just taking one drifting step can you set you in a course that’s very hard to stop. In my case, I drifted into taking the LSAT (the law-school application test). “Why not, might as well, could come in handy, maybe I’ll be glad I did,” etc. This is a good example of the fact that drifting doesn’t always mean taking the easier course; it was a lot of trouble to prepare and take the LSAT, but it was still drift.
Some situations look like drift but aren’t. You may be following a pathless path -- and that's fine, if that's what you intend to do. Or you may have to choose between multiple courses, with their pros and cons, and you can’t decide which you want, and while you’re deciding, life continues rolling along. This isn’t drift, because you’re actively weighing your options. Sometimes, it’s helpful to postpone making a decision, either because you get more information or because your own preferences reveal themselves. However, if this goes on too long – and it’s hard to know what’s too long – it can become drift.
The tricky thing about drift is that people rarely want to admit to themselves that they’re drifting. So what’s a good way to catch yourself in drift? I tried to make a list of warning signs for myself:
-- Thinking “This situation can’t go on,” but then it does go on.
-- Complaining a lot about a situation without working to find ways to make it better.
-- Hoping that some catastrophe or upheaval will arise to blow up a situation, e.g., fantasizing that you’ll break your leg or be transferred to another city.
-- Feeling that other people or processes are moving events forward, and you’re being passively carried along.
-- Getting the urge to do or have something because the people around you are doing it or want it. One of my Secrets of Adulthood is "Just because something is fun for someone else doesn’t mean it’s fun for you – and vice versa."
Have you ever caught yourself in drift? What are some other warning signs?
* I always find a lot of great material to read at Beyond Blue, a blog about "a spiritual journey to mental health," and I was interested in a recent post, Depression happens to successful people.
* Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.
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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.
One of my happiness-project resolutions is to “Forgive an accident.” Now, you might think, why should I try to forgive an accident? After all, if something is an accident, there’s nothing to forgive. Accidents happen, we all know that.
Yes, I know that. Accidents happen. But I still find it hard not to be annoyed—and to act annoyed—in the face of certain accidents. Reminding myself of my resolution helps me to respond in the right way.
Here are just two examples:
1. When we were flying to Kansas City to spend Christmas with my parents, my daughter lost her “functional appliance.” If you’re not current with the latest parlance of orthodontia, this is like a fancy retainer. My daughter is supposed to wear it at all times, except when she’s eating. We were on the plane, she took it out to eat, and the next time she looked for it, it was gone. We all looked, couldn’t find it. We think it must’ve been thrown away when the stewardess took her food tray.
I was annoyed: She wouldn’t be able to wear this thing again until we were back in New York and had managed to replace it; getting a new one would be expensive; it would be inconvenient.
2. Recently, my husband left his wallet in a cab. The second he reached the sidewalk, he realized he didn’t have his wallet, and he raced down the street to stop the cab, but it was gone. He waited anxiously for two days before he had to admit to himself that it really wasn’t coming back. Before that, however, we had to cancel our credit cards.
I was annoyed: We’d put a lot of recurrent and online charges on one of the lost cards, so that number had to replaced many times, by me.
In each situation, I could feel the accident-causer bracing against my possible annoyance, and it was very, very hard to resist the temptation to say things like “You should’ve been more careful!,” “Now we’re going to have all this hassle to fix this!,” “How could you have not noticed that you didn’t know where it was?,” etc. But I realized—what was the point? My daughter felt terrible, my husband felt terrible. In general, they’re both very responsible. My daughter had never lost her F.A. before, and my husband had never lost a wallet before. They obviously hadn’t done these things on purpose. Why make a bad situation worse?
In each case, once the moment passed, I was very glad that I reacted mildly. (I even came up with a good idea about credit cards: Now we have a card that never leaves the house that we use for online charges.) When you’re feeling bad about something you’ve done, it’s awful when someone adds to that feeling—you feel defensive, resentful, and misunderstood. I didn't want to cause that.
Also, one of my Personal Commandments is to Act the way I want to feel; although we think we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. By acting calm and forgiving, I help myself to feel calm and forgiving, instead of annoyed.
The resolution would be more accurately phrased as “Let go of an accident” or “Forget an accident,” but somehow I need the little extra kick supplied by the word “forgive.”
How about you? Have you ever felt tempted to react harshly to something someone did, even though it was an accident?
* I loved this little video on Gimundo—especially because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to use photographs to keep happiness-project resolutions like “Take time for projects” and “Be a treasure house of happy memories." The Black Lake Island project and Taking tourist photos of my own romance, for example, both use photographs.
* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 24,000 subscribers. If you’d like to sign up, click here or e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (sorry about that weird format—trying to to thwart spammers.) Just write “newsletter” in the subject line. It’s free.
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I've started a feature—the True Rules series. These are concrete lessons that come out of people's specific experiences. Whether you agree with these rules or not, they’re fun to consider.
I was very excited to have lunch with the brilliant Debbie Stier in her office at HarperStudio, which is part of my publishing house, HarperCollins. A few weeks ago, I’d been in a meeting she led, and I'd immediately realized that she was a treasure trove of information about how to use online tools—and specifically, how to use them as a writer.
I came away from the meeting with a long list of things to read and experiment with. One of Debbie’s suggestions was to “use more video,” so I asked her if she’d give me a True Rule for my video series. Here’s her True Rule:
In case you can’t watch the video, Debbie says: “My True Rule is that you should rock the boat. Don’t let fear stop you, don’t let what other people might think stop you, just push it as far as you can go—rock the boat, take risks, and experiment.”
* Two friends of mine started a fantastic new blog, Drinking Diaries, "where women spill their drinking stories." I was pleased when they asked me to do a guest post—I wrote about Why I stopped drinking alcohol (more or less).
* Check out my companion site, the Happiness Project Toolbox. Great tools to build your happiness—and the chance to see what OTHER people are doing!
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Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: 14 tips for running a good meeting.
Nothing can drain the happiness from you faster than a long, unproductive meeting. You’re bored; you’re not getting anything done; e-mails are piling up while you sit, trapped.
On the other hand, a productive meeting is exhilarating. A long time ago, when I was working in Washington, D.C., I remember a friend who worked at the Department of Justice saying, “Jamie Gorelick runs a meeting so well, it brings tears to my eyes.”
Meetings come in all shapes and sizes, so not all of these strategies will be useful, but here are some things I try to remember when I’m in or running a meeting:
1. Very obvious: Start on time, and end on time. Once people see that meetings are starting late, the bad habit builds, because people see there’s no point in showing up promptly. Here's one solution for late starts: a friend worked at a law firm that started fining partners $100 if they were late to a meeting, which turned out to be very effective. If the meeting has to run long, say, “We’re not through with the seven points, so can everyone stay fifteen extra minutes to wrap up?” That way, people know that the end is in sight.
2. At the same time, remember that it’s helpful to spend a little time in chit-chat. For a long time, I didn’t believe this to be true, and I tried to be hyper-efficient, but now I realize that it’s important—and productive—for people to have a chance to relate on a personal level. People need to build friendships, they need a chance to show their personalities, they need to establish rapport. Meetings are very important for this process.
3. If some people hesitate to jump in, find a way to draw them out. Ability to grab the floor doesn’t necessarily correlate with capacity to contribute.
4. One of the most insightful things my father ever told me was “If you’re willing to take the blame, people will give you the responsibility.” Meetings often involve blame-giving and blame-taking, and although it’s not pleasant to accept blame, it’s a necessary aspect of getting responsibility (if deserved, of course). Proving my father’s point, one of my best meeting experiences ever was a time when I took the blame—rightly—for something done by a team of people working with me. Doing this ended up dramatically increasing my organizational credibility on all sides.
5. Share the credit. Along with blame, a meeting is also a great place to give people credit for their ideas and accomplishments. Be quick to point out great work or to call for a round of applause for a colleague. For some reason, people often act as though credit is a zero-sum goody, and if they share credit, they’ll get less themselves. From what I’ve seen, sharing credit not only doesn’t diminish the number of gold stars you get, but it adds to them—because people so admire the ability to give credit. (Gold star junkie that I am, I pay close attention in this area.)
6. Making people feel stupid isn’t productive, and it isn’t kind. A friend has a good suggestion: “Be cheerfully, impersonally decisive.”
7. Have an agenda and stick to it. If possible, circulate the agenda in advance, along with anything else that needs to be read to prepare for the meeting. Make sure people know if they should bring anything. Along the same lines …
8. Never go to a meeting if you don’t know why you’re supposed to be there! This seems obvious, but it’s a situation that arises surprisingly frequently.
9. Standing meetings should be kept as short as possible and very structured. Have rules for canceling the meeting when appropriate—if such-and-such doesn’t happen, if only a certain number of people can attend, etc.
10. Don't say things that will undermine or antagonize other people. Turns out they do in fact notice this, and they don't appreciate it. If you wonder whether you're an offender, check yourself against this list.
11. Be very specific about what the “action items” are (to use the business-school term). Who is agreeing to do what, by when? Make sure someone is keeping track of what is supposed to happen as a consequence of the meeting, and at the meeting’s end, review these items so it’s crystal clear to everyone. Follow up by e-mail.
12. If a meeting is long, schedule breaks when people can check their e-mail and phones. Otherwise, they get very distracted by feeling they’ve been out of touch for too long (for some people, this takes about 10 minutes), and they start sneakily e-mailing under the table. As if no one will notice. Which they do.
13. Meetings should stay tightly focused. If people want a chance to discuss side issues, theoretical problems, or philosophical questions that aren’t relevant to the purpose of the meeting, they should set up a separate meeting.
14. Here’s a radical solution: no chairs. In Bob Sutton’s terrific book, The No A**** Rule
(printed that way not out of prudery but to avoid spamblockers), he points to a study that showed that people in meetings where everyone stood took 34 percent less time to make an assigned decision, with decisions that were just as good as those made by groups who were sitting down.
What am I missing? What are some other strategies for improving meetings?
* BoingBoing is a "directory of wonderful things," and it truly is. You never know what you'll find, but there's always a lot of interesting stuff there.
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