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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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During my study of happiness, 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. There’s something peculiarly compelling and instructive about hearing other people’s happiness stories.
Alex Fayle has a great blog, Someday Syndrome. There, he writes about the importance of not waiting until “someday” to pursue your dreams or make important changes but to put these ideas into action now.
He just released an e-book, Someday My Ship Will Come In, to help people make the transition from autopilot to conscious choices. It leads readers through a series of short lessons and exercises designed step-by-step to get people thinking and choosing.
Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Alex: Each day I choose to be happy. When I wake up in the morning, I think about my day and smile in anticipation. When I don't make this conscious choice, my day usually passes with low energy.
What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
When I was 18, I decided that it was too scary to follow my dreams, so I made a conscious choice not to pursue writing. I let fear put my dreams on hold for nearly 20 years, and I spent that entire time not feeling happy. Until I made the choice to follow my writing dreams, I never realized that I had the power to make myself happy. I always waited for it to come to me, saying, "Someday my ship will come in."
Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
When I see all the work ahead of me and the all the details each task entails, I get paralyzed and depressed. However, when I focus on just the next step facing me, I'm intensely happy. I find the more I look to the future—the more I look for that Someday Ship—the less I act in the moment. Each day therefore I ask myself, What can I do right now to bring my dreams closer to fruition.
Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”) Or a happiness quotation that has struck you as particularly insightful?
I love this quote: “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.“—Eleanor Roosevelt.
It leads me to my motto, which is: Life is a choice.
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?
Happiness is difficult to find when we live on autopilot and live without making conscious choices. The more aware we are our of choices and the more we decide to be happy, the happier we are. We tell ourselves, "Someday my ship will come in" and so put off making choices, believing that somehow happiness will come to us without having to act.
I wrote my e-book, Someday My Ship Will Come In, to help get readers thinking and choosing about their choices.
* I had a great time meeting Aidan Donnelley Rowley for coffee the other day—we were set up by Danielle LaPorte of White Hot Truth fame—and we could've talked all afternoon. She was nice enough to mention me and the Happiness Project in a post If You're Happy and You Know It ... on her excellent new blog, Ivy League Insecurities.
* 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.
This Wednesday: Seven tips for making good conversation with a stranger.
I posted before about tips for knowing if you're boring someone and tips to avoid being a bore. But while it might be fairly easy to avoid topics that are likely to bore someone, it's much harder to figure out what to say if you want to be interesting. Making polite conversation can be tough.
“So where do you live?”
“Chelsea.”
“Really. I live on the upper east side.”
“Great …”
Painful silence.
Here are some strategies to try when your mind is a blank:
1. Comment on a topic common to both of you at the moment: the food, the room, the occasion, the weather. “How do you know our host?” “What brings you to this event?” But keep it on the positive side! Unless you can be hilariously funny, the first time you come in contact with a person isn’t a good time to complain.
2. Comment on a topic of general interest. A friend scans Google News right before he goes anywhere where he needs to make small talk, so he can say, “Did you hear that Justice Souter is stepping down from the bench?” or whatever might be happening.
3. Ask open questions that can’t be answered with a single word. “What’s keeping you busy these days?” This is a good question if you’re talking to a person who doesn’t have an office job. It’s also helpful because it allows people to choose their focus (work, volunteer, family, hobby) — preferable to the inevitable question (well, inevitable at least in New York City): “What do you do?”
A variant: “What are you working on these days?” This is a useful dodge if you ought to know what the person does for a living, but can’t remember.
4. If you do ask a question that can be answered in a single word, instead of just supplying your own information in response, ask a follow-up question. For example, if you ask, “Where are you from?” an interesting follow-up question might be, “What would your life be like if you still lived there?” If you ask, “Do you have children?” you might ask, “How are you a different kind of parent from your own parents?” or “Have you decided to do anything very differently from the way you were raised?”
5. Ask getting-to-know-you questions. “What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to? What internet sites do you visit regularly?” These questions often reveal a hidden passion, which can make for great conversation.
6. React to what a person says in the spirit in which that that comment was offered. If he makes a joke, even if it’s not very funny, try to laugh. If she offers some surprising information (“Did you know that one out of every seven books sold last year was written by Stephanie Meyer?”), react with surprise. Recently, I’ve had a few conversations where the person I was talking to just never reacted to what I said. I was trying to be all insightful and interesting, and these two people reacted as though everything I said was completely obvious and dull. It was unsatisfying.
Now, what to do if a conversation is just not working, and there’s no way to use the “Excuse me, I need to go get something to drink” line? Recently, at a dinner party, the guy sitting on my right side was clearly very bored by me. He explained to me at length about how happiness didn’t really exist, but after setting me straight on that question didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and after a few failed attempts at other topics, after an awkward pause in the conversation (my fault as much as his), he said, “Um, so where are you from?” It was such a listless, uninspired effort that I leaned over, put my hand on his arm, and said meanly, “Now, Paul, surely we can do better than that!” and changed the conversation. (It is moments like that that make me happy that I basically gave up drinking.)
So what can you do when the conversation is such a struggle?
7. A friend argues that you should admit it! “We’re really working hard, aren’t we?” or “It’s frustrating—I’m sure we have interests in common, but we’re having a difficult time finding them.” Clearly this is a desperate measure, but my friend insists that it works. I’ve never had the gumption to try it, I have to admit.
What are some other strategies for starting an interesting conversation with a stranger? What have I overlooked? On a related note, here are some tips if you can't remember someone's name.
* I’m a huge fan of Twitter, in part because it has helped me find so many great writers and great information, and one person –- and blog -- that I discovered on Twitter is Gwen Bell. She writes about branding, social media, and creativity, and always has fresh, interesting things to say.
* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 20,000 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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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 few days ago, I observed that it’s often easier for me to do something every day than to do it just some days. I post to my blog six days a week. I take notes every day. I write in my one-sentence journal every day. Many people have told me that they find it easier to exercise when they exercise every day. If I try to do something just four days a week, I spend a lot of time arguing with myself about whether today is the day, or is it tomorrow, or the next day; did the week start on Sunday or Monday; etc.
If you do something every day, you tend to fall into a routine. Routine has a bad reputation. It’s true that novelty and challenge bring happiness and that people who break their routines, try new things, and go new places are happier, but I think that some routine activities also bring happiness. The pleasure of doing the same thing, in the same way, every day, shouldn’t be overlooked. By reframing, you can find happiness in activities like doing dishes or sweeping the floor as well as in your beloved morning coffee-and-news ritual.
The things you do every day take on a certain beauty and provide a kind of invisible architecture to daily life.
Two geniuses whom I associate with the idea of the unconventional wrote about the power of doing something every day. Andy Warhol wrote, “Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.” Gertrude Stein made a related point: “Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.”
So if there’s something that you wish you did more regularly, try doing it every day; if you do something every day, revel in it.
* This morning, a friend sent me the link to The Glow Project—about a movie featuring engaging insights and interviews with 14 prominent women about overcoming difficulties and finding happiness. I just watched the entire trailer.
* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts. If you’d like to sign up, click here. Or 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.) No need to write anything more than “newsletter” in the subject line.