-
sponsorship
Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: 10 widespread myths about happiness.
Each day for two weeks, I posted about 10 Happiness Myths. Today, for your reading convenience, I’m posting the entire list, with links.
No. 1: Happy people are annoying and stupid.
No. 2: Nothing changes a person’s happiness level much.
No. 3: Venting anger relieves it.
No. 4: You’ll be happier if you insist on “the best.”
No. 5: A “treat” will cheer you up.
No. 6: Money can’t buy happiness.
No. 7: Doing “random acts of kindness” brings happiness.
No. 8: You’ll be happy as soon as you …
No. 9: Spending some time alone will make you feel better.
No. 10: The biggest myth: It’s selfish to try to be happier.
Agree? Disagree? Am I missing an important myth?
* A kind reader send me the link to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, which features a very interesting U.S. map showing how happy each state is. I'm from Missouri, and I was surprised to see that it's on the low end. New York is near the high end.
* I send out short monthly newsletters that highlight the best of the previous month’s posts to about 19,000 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.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for last two weeks, I’ve been debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 9: Spending Some Time Alone Will Make You Feel Better.
Happiness Myth No. 10: The biggest myth—it’s selfish and self-centered to try to be happier.
Myth No. 10 is the most pernicious myth about happiness. It comes in a few varieties. One holds that “in a world so full of suffering, you can be happy only if you’re callous and self-centered.” Another one is “happy people become wrapped up in their own pleasure; they’re complacent and uninterested in the world.”
Wrong. Studies show that, quite to the contrary, happier people are more likely to help other people, they’re more interested in social problems, they do more volunteer work, and they contribute more to charity. They’re less preoccupied with their personal problems. By contrast, less-happy people are more apt to be defensive, isolated, and self-absorbed, and unfortunately, their negative moods are catching (technical name: emotional contagion). Just as eating your dinner doesn't help starving children in India, being blue yourself doesn't help unhappy people become happier.
I've certainly noticed this about myself. When I’m feeling happy, I find it easier to notice other people’s problems, I feel that I have more energy to try to take action, I have the emotional wherewithal to tackle sad or difficult issues, and I’m not as preoccupied with myself. I feel more generous and forgiving.
As I’ve worked on my happiness project, one of my biggest intellectual breakthroughs was the identification of my Second Splendid Truth. There’s a circularity to it that confused me for a long time. At last, one June morning, it became clear:
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.
Everyone accepts the first part of the Second Splendid Truth, but the second part is just as important. By making the effort to make yourself happier, you better equip yourself to make other people happier, as well. It’s not selfish to try to be happier. In fact, the epigraph to the book The Happiness Project is a quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson: “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”
And so ends the series on the 10 Happiness Myths.
* On a positive-psychology listserv, I read comments by Professor Todd Kashdan, and I see he did an interesting study on the relationship of gratitude to happiness—and how men are much less likely to feel and express gratitude than are women. Interesting.
* New to the Happiness Project? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for two weeks, I’m debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Happiness Myth No. 8: You'll Be Happy As Soon As You ...
Happiness Myth No. 9: Spending some time alone will make you feel better.
Wrong. Although it can be tempting to take a “personal day” when you’re feeling blue or to isolate yourself until you feel better, you’re better off doing just the opposite.
Connecting with other people, even if you don’t feel like it, is more likely to improve your mood—and that's true even for introverts. Any kind of engagement gives you a lift.
In fact, researchers reported that out of 15 daily activities, such as exercising, commuting, or doing housework, everything is more fun with company. They found only one activity during which people were happier alone rather than with other people—praying. To my mind, that’s no exception; the point of praying is that you’re not talking to yourself.
I’ve certainly found this to be true in my own life. I spend most of my days by myself, reading and writing, and I’ve noticed that I always get a big burst of energy and cheer when I have a chance to be with other people. Even if I leave my desk feeling enraged, annoyed, or insecure, I feel better after talking to someone else—not talking about what’s bothering me but just talking about anything at all. In fact, I usually feel better if I’m distracted from my concerns rather than try to discuss them.
So if you just went through a painful breakup and so are tempted to not meet your friends after work but instead stay home on the sofa with the remote control or if you just lost your job and so don’t want to deal with going to the the neighborhood barbecue, make the effort to push yourself out the door. Most likely, you’ll feel better if you do.
* New to the Happiness Project? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for two weeks, I’ve been debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 7: Doing "Random Acts of Kindness" Brings Happiness.
Happiness Myth No. 8: You’ll be happy as soon as you …
We often imagine that we’ll be happy as soon as we get a job/make partner/get tenure/get married/get that promotion/have a baby/move. As a writer, I often find myself imagining some happy future: “Once I sell this proposal …” or “Once this book comes out …”
In his book Happier
, Tal Ben-Shahar calls this the “arrival fallacy,” the belief that when you arrive at a certain destination, you’ll be happy. (Other fallacies include the “floating world fallacy,” the belief that immediate pleasure, cut off from future purpose, can bring happiness, and the “nihilism fallacy,” the belief that it’s not possible to become happier.) The arrival fallacy is a fallacy because arriving rarely makes you as happy as you expect.
Why? Because usually by the time you’ve arrived at your destination, you’re expecting to reach it, so it has already been incorporated into your happiness. You quickly become adjusted to the new state of affairs. And, of course, arriving at one goal usually reveals a new goal. There’s another hill to climb.
In fact, working toward a goal can be a more powerful source of happiness than hitting it—which can sometimes be a letdown. It’s important, therefore, to look for happiness in the present, in the atmosphere of growth afforded by making gradual progress toward a goal (technical name: pre-goal attainment positive affect).
When I find myself focusing too much on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal (as I often do), I remind myself to “Enjoy now.” If I can enjoy the present, I don’t need to count on the happiness that is—or isn’t—waiting for me in the future. The fun part doesn’t come later, now is the fun part.
So the arrival fallacy doesn’t mean that pursuing goals isn’t a route to happiness. To the contrary. The goal is necessary, just as is the process toward the goal. Nietzche explained it: “The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.”
* My former boss, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has launched a wonderful site, Our Courts, a fantastic new resource about civics for students and teachers. There's a great video of Justice O'Connor explaining the site—I was laughing as I watched, because it so captures her personality. My favorite line: "The Founders of our Constitution and our government created three equal branches of government. Like superheroes, each branch of government has special powers, but each one also has certain weaknesses."
* New to the Happiness Project? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for two weeks, I’m debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 6: Money Can't Buy Happiness.
Happiness Myth No. 7: Doing "random acts of kindness" brings happiness.
Half wrong. It is true that studies show that if you commit a random act of kindness, you'll feel happier. What’s considered a “random act of kindness”? Giving a flower to a stranger, paying the toll for the car behind you, or putting coins in someone’s meter are typical examples.
Doing something thoughtful for someone else is a surefire way to make yourself happier. Do good, feel good.
However, probably the reason you feel happier is that you’re imagining that you’re making someone else happy (that’s the Second Splendid Truth, Part A)—and that’s not as true as you might think. A study shows that many people reacted to receiving a random act of kindness with—suspicion! (See also Larsen and Prizmic's "Regulation of Emotional Well-Being" in The Science of Subjective Well-Being
.)
This certainly rings true for me. If someone randomly does something kind for me, I’m on guard. It’s not that I have a profound distrust for mankind; it’s just that I’m uneasy if I don’t understand why someone behaves in an unusual way. It’s not the kindness of the act that’s the problem; it’s the randomness.
We don’t expect people to act randomly. A person might feel suspicious when you hand him a flower, for example, because he might think you’re trying to invoke the very strong psychological phenomenon of “reciprocation”: When someone gives you something or does something for you, you feel you must reciprocate. That’s why members of the Hare Krishna Society gave flowers to passers-by in airports. That’s why charities send those complimentary address labels when they ask you for money. (For a fascinating discussion of reciprocation, read the brilliant book by Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
.)
It’s always nice to be nice, of course. It’s not bad to practice random acts of kindness. But if you want to build your happiness based on the happiness you bring to other people—the noblest ways of boosting happiness—it’s more productive to be targeted. Help a co-worker even when you’re rushing to meet a deadline yourself. Go out of your way to help an overwhelmed parent juggling toddlers and grocery bags. Putting money in someone’s meter is just such an unexpected action that there’s a good chance that it won’t be understood correctly.
Maybe some people are attracted to acting randomly because it allows them to be more secretive about their good deeds; some people believe that the fact that you get “credit” for a worthy act somehow minimizes its worth, and along the same lines, some people argue that you can never act with true altruism, because performing good acts brings the pleasure of happiness. My view: all the better!
The fact is, the sight of someone performing a generous or kind act always makes me feel happy. Especially if it’s me! The spectacle of virtue inspires the feeling of elevation—one of the most delicate pleasures that the world offers. As Simone Weil observed, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” That’s true no matter who is performing that real good.
So perform acts of kindness. Randomly, but even better, not randomly.
How about you? What has been your experience with random acts of kindness—whether on the receiving or the giving end?
* I always like checking out the many fascinating writers on the Psychology Today blogs.
* I'm on Twitter.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for two weeks, I’m debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. On Friday, I wrote about Myth No 5: A "Treat" Will Cheer You Up.
Myth No. 6: Money can't buy happiness.
Well, money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can buy lots of things that contribute mightily to happiness.
As the current financial downturn is making vividly clear, money contributes to happiness mostly in the negative; the lack of it brings much more unhappiness than possessing it brings happiness. (Good health is the same way—it’s easy to take money or health for granted until you don’t have it anymore.) People’s biggest worries include financial anxiety, health concerns, job insecurity, and having to do tiring and boring chores. Spent right, money can go a long way toward relieving these problems.
Also, if spent wisely, money can help you boost your happiness. For example, philosophers and scientists agree that having strong ties to other people is the key to happiness, and money can pay for a plane ticket to visit your sister, a babysitter for a date night with your sweetheart, or pizza and beer for a Super Bowl party with friends. Novelty and challenge will make you happier, and money can pay for a trip to France, for a drawing class, for a mountain bike.
Is money essential for developing strong ties to other people or finding ways to challenge yourself? Of course not. But money can make it easier. Some of the best things in life aren’t free.
Whether rich or poor, people make choices about how they spend money, and those choices can boost happiness or undermine happiness. It’s a mistake to assume that money will affect everyone the same way. No statistical average can say how a particular individual would be affected by money—depending on that individual’s circumstances and temperament. Three factors shape the significance of money for you:
* It depends on what kind of person you are. You might want to own a horse, or you might want to own a turtle. You might have six children and ailing, dependent parents, or you might have no children and robust parents. You might love to travel or you might prefer to putter around the house.
* It depends on how you spend your money. Some purchases are more likely to contribute to your happiness than others. You might buy cocaine, or you might buy fresh produce. You might splurge on a big-screen TV, or you might splurge by going to a more convenient gym.
* It depends on how much money you have relative to the people around you and relative to your own experience. One person’s fortune is another person’s misfortune.
The current economic climate underscores that third aspect of the money/happiness relationship: Our happiness is affected by whether we have more or less than we used to have.
My First Splendid Truth holds that “to think about happiness, think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.” We’re made happier by the feeling that we are learning, growing, seeing change for the better. This applies to the intellectual, spiritual, and emotional parts of our lives—and also, for most people, the financial part.
Feeling like we have less than we did—unless that’s the result of a conscious decision—can be a happiness challenge. In one striking study, people were asked whether they’d rather have a job that paid $30,000 the first year, $40,000 in the second year, and $50,000 in the third year or a job that paid $60,000, then $50,000, then $40,000. In general, people preferred the first option, with its raises—despite the fact that at the end of the three years, they would have earned only $120,000 total instead of $150,000.
Their decision might seem irrational, but in fact, the people who chose the first option understood the importance of growth to happiness. People are very sensitive to relative changes in their condition, for better or worse. (Side note: Some people feel like they have more with less, so they get a feeling of growth by simplifying their lives.)
If you feel like you’re worse off now than you were two years ago, that’s an unhappy feeling. Some quick ways to make yourself feel better: Count your blessings; distract yourself with something fun or interesting; find ways to assert control over your situation (even to do something as small as clean out a closet); spend time with friends; or do something to help someone else—you can sign up to be an organ donor right this minute.
What do you think? How do you think of the relationship between money and happiness? Important, unimportant? I think this is one of the most complex and fascinating subtopics within the subject of happiness.
* I love a good manifesto, and here's a great one on Scobleizer.
* If you haven't seen my one-minute movie, The Years Are Short, you might enjoy it.
-
sponsorship
On Fridays, I usually propose a resolution for you to consider for your own happiness project, but I'm breaking the pattern to post for two weeks about "happiness myths." Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 4: You’ll Be Happier If You Insist on “The Best.”
Happiness Myth No. 5: A "treat" will cheer you up. Often, not!
It depends on what you choose. Treating yourself to a long walk in the park, say, is a good idea—but the things we choose as “treats” frequently aren’t good for us. When you’re feeling blue or overwhelmed, it’s tempting to try to pick yourself up by indulging in a guilty pleasure, but unfortunately, the pleasure lasts a minute, and then feelings of guilt, loss of control, and other negative consequences just deepen the blues.
So when you find yourself thinking, “I’ll feel better after I have a few glasses of wine … some ice cream … just one cigarette … a new pair of jeans,” ask yourself—will it really make you feel better? Or is it likely to make you feel worse, in the long run?
For example, I realized that one of my personal “treats” is the decision not to pick up after myself. Instead of trying to tidy as I go, as I usually do, I let small tasks mount up. “I can’t possibly be expected to hang up my coat, or put the newspapers in the recycling bin, or unload the dishwasher,” I tell myself. “I’m too busy/too frazzled/too upset/too rushed. I deserve a break.”
The problem is that, in the end, the mess makes me feel worse. Maybe I enjoy a tiny buzz from flinging my coat onto the floor, but the disorder just makes my bad mood deepen. (Plus it’s not nice for anyone else, either.) On the other hand, serene, orderly surroundings make me feel better. Outer order contributes to inner calm.
Now, instead of “treating” myself to a mess, I make a special effort to keep things tidy when I’m feeling low. Same with my other guilty pleasures, like skipping going to the gym, eating fake food, not picking up phone messages … although skipping a little duty feels like a “treat” for a minute, actually, I cheer myself up more by doing the things I know I ought to do.
The warning signs: Whenever I tell myself things like, “I deserve this,” “I need this,” or “Today I shouldn’t have to stick to my usual resolutions,” that’s a signal that I’m trying to justify a pernicious “treat.”
How about you? Do you ever “treat” yourself to things that, in the end, just make you feel worse? Or have you found good treats that actually make you feel better?
* I love watching interviews of interesting people, and I was thrilled to discover Obsessed, a new, sophisticated site that features interviews with fascinating guests (e.g., Lisa Stone, Mark Bittman, Peter Greenberg) in conversation with host Samantha Ettus.
* 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.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for two weeks, I’m debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Happiness Myth No. 3: Venting anger relieves it.
Happiness Myth No. 4: You’ll be happier if you insist on "The Best."
Maybe not. As Barry Schwartz explains in his fascinating book, The Paradox of Choice
, there are two types of decision-makers. Satisficers (yes, satisficers) make a decision once their criteria are met; when they find the hotel or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied. Maximizers want to make the best possible decision; even if they see a bicycle that meets their requirements, they can’t make a decision until they’ve examined every option.
Studies suggest that satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers expend more time and energy reaching decisions, and they’re often anxious about their choices. They find the research process exhausting, yet can’t let themselves settle for anything but the best.
As a shopper, my mother is a good example of a “happy limited maximizer.” In some categories, she’s a maximizer, and she loves the very process of investigating every possibility. When my daughters were flower girls in my sister’s wedding, my mother would have loved nothing more than to examine every possible dress, just for the fun of it. In other categories, however, she’s a satisficer.
I’m a satisficer, and I often felt guilty about not doing more research before making decisions. In law school, one friend interviewed with 50 law firms before she decided where she wanted to go as a summer associate; I think I interviewed with six. We ended up at the same firm. Once I learned to call myself a “satisficer,” I felt more satisfied with my approach to decision-making; instead of feeling lazy and unconscientious, I could call myself prudent.
It’s one of the Secrets of Adulthood: Most decisions don’t require extensive research. In some situations, the happier course is to know when good enough is good enough, and not to worry about making the perfect choice.
* I'm on Twitter.
-
sponsorship
For the first time since I started this blog three years ago, I'm skipping the Wednesday Tips in order to bring you this series on the happiness myths. Each day for two weeks, I’m debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 2: Nothing Changes a Person's Happiness Level Much.
Happiness Myth No. 3: Venting anger relieves it.
Wrong. Contrary to popular notion, aggressive "venting" doesn’t relieve bad feelings but fuels them. Studies show that blowing up, punching a pillow, yelling, or slamming doors makes you feel worse, not better.
Although we think we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. For example, studies show that even an artificially induced smile brings about happier emotions, and a recent experiment suggested that people who use Botox are less prone to anger because they can’t make angry faces. Philosopher and psychologist William James explained: “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”
Although this “fake it ‘till you feel it” strategy might seem fake or inauthentic, I’ve found it to be almost creepily effective. You really can change your emotions. It takes great presence of mind, and a lot of self-discipline, but whenever I can manage to act lighthearted or friendly or receptive to criticism or whatever is the opposite of my grouchy, gruff, defensive instinct in the moment, I really transform my mood.
Bottom line: If you’re feeling angry or sad, instead of expressing negative emotions in a dramatic way, try to act the way you wish you felt by finding a calm way to express your feelings—or take steps to distract yourself.
For a discussion of the catharsis hypothesis, check out “The Uses of Adversity” chapter in Jonathan Haidt’s terrific book, The Happiness Hypothesis
.
* I always find a lot that interests me on Marginal Revolution.
* New to the Happiness Project? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for two weeks, I’m going to debunk one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth #1: Happy People Are Annoying and Stupid.
Happiness Myth No. 2: People have a happiness set point, and no matter what happens to them, before long, they snap back to their usual happiness level.
Wrong.
From time to time, someone says to me something like, “Trying to make yourself happier is futile. People have a genetic set point that doesn’t change. I heard about a study of people who became paralyzed, and after a few months, they were back to their old selves!”
It’s true that there’s a powerful genetic link to happiness—usually it’s estimated to be about 40 percent to 50 percent. Some people are born more Tigger-ish, and others are born more Eeyore-ish. And it’s also true that people are amazingly adaptive, both to good and bad fortune. Human resilience is extraordinary.
However, adaptation has its limits.
About those people who become paralyzed—in a major study looking at the happiness levels of people with disabilities, it turned out that these folks took a big hit when they were injured, and they didn’t all snap back to where they were before. Some, yes, did recover their previous level of happiness, some recovered somewhat, and some didn’t recover much at all.
Major life events can have strong, lasting effects on people’s happiness. For example, although people adapt quickly to marriage, it takes much longer for widows adapt to widowhood. Losing a job, getting divorced—these kinds of events make a significant lasting impact on happiness.
Adaptation varies considerably among people. Some get over changes quickly, while others take much longer to adapt, if they ever do.
This is the way I’ve come to think about this question: People are born with a natural range of temperament, but circumstances, actions, and thoughts can push people up to the top of their range or down to the bottom of their range.
That’s the effect my happiness project has had on me. When I’m in neutral—say, I’m staring out the window of a bus—I’m the same familiar Gretchen. My happiness project hasn’t changed my inborn temperament. (I score 3.92 on a 1-to-5 scale, by the way; take the Authentic Happiness Inventory Questionnaire if you want to test yourself.) The difference is that, because of my happiness project, my daily experience of my life is happier. I have more fun and less guilt. I have more challenge, more novelty, more satisfaction as well as less anger, less boredom, less remorse. That’s how I’ve made myself happier, without changing myself.
If you want to read more about this fascinating debate, check out the chapter “Nature and Nurture: Is There a Happiness Set Point, and Can You Change It?” in Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener’s Happiness and Richard E. Lucas’s “Personality and Subjective Well-Being” in The Science of Subjective Well-Being.
* 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.
-
sponsorship
As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for the next two weeks, I’m going to debunk one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project.
Myth no. 1: People find happy people annoying and stupid.
Wrong. Actually, studies show that people find happy people much more likable than their less-happy peers. Happy people are viewed as friendlier, smarter, warmer, less selfish, more self-confident, and more socially skilled—even more physically attractive.
Instead of finding them annoying, people find happy people attractive. Happy people have more friends and more social support than their less-happy peers. In marriage, they find it easier to get and stay married, and they’re more fulfilled in marriage. At work, they get more assistance from colleagues and supervisors.
It’s true that many people associate happiness with a lack of intellectual rigor. Charles de Gaulle reportedly said, “Happy people are idiots.” Creativity, authenticity, or discernment, some folks argue, is incompatible with the complacency of happiness—if happiness even exists. But although somber, pessimistic people might seem smarter, research shows that happiness and intelligence are essentially unrelated.
(Stay tuned for discussion of the related myth that happy people are self-absorbed and selfish.)
For a fascinating, exhaustive, well-documented exploration of this issue, see Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener’s The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?
I often wonder why happiness has such a bad reputation. It's more pleasant to be happy, and it's more pleasant to be around happy people, and it's more challenging to be happier than to be less happy—why is happiness so often maligned and seen as lazy and easy? What do you think?
*
On her new blog at readersdigest.com, Peggy Northrop wrote about a great idea: After her teenager asked her to stop talking about the economy, she decided to throw a "Cheer Up Already” potluck dinner (where people without a job don’t have to bring anything). Science backs up this idea: Seeing friends is a great way to boost your mood.
*
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.