The Happiness Project: How To Be Happier

"Do Not Spoil What You Have By Desiring What You Have Not..."

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.”
--Epicurus

* I'm a longtime fan of Ben Casnocha's blog, but I just discovered his Business Rules of Thumb Wiki. This is a wonderful compilation of rules -- what I call, in my own terminology "true rules" and "Secrets of Adulthood." It's a fantastic, thoughtful list.

Imagine That Something Good Never Happened

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.

Can You Curse During a Gratitude Meditation?

We’ve all heard about studies that show that counting our blessings or doing some kind of gratitude meditation will boost happiness. Some people dismiss the idea, however, with the assumption that you can only cultivate gratitude if you’re the pure, high-minded sort – that you have to ponder silently by a woodland stream, or sit lotus-style on your yoga mat, or at least keep a daily journal if you want to focus on gratitude.

“That kind of thing isn’t for me,” the thinking goes. “I’m too edgy, too irreverent, too ironic.”

But as this YouTube clip shows, gratitude meditations can come in a lot of flavors.

On Late Night with Conan O’Brien, comedian Louis CK’s commentary is edgy and irreverent – and it absolutely reminds us to be grateful of the things we take for granted in everyday life.

I can't embed the clip, Everything's amazing, nobody's happy, but go check it out. My favorite line, about getting a cell-phone connection, "Can you give it a second? It's going to space."

What he said must have resonated with people; Time reports that the video has been viewed more than a million times, which put it as March’s fourth most-viewed clip.

I find it challenging to practice gratitude, and I’m always looking for new ways to cultivate a grateful frame of mind. I loved the fact that watching Conan O’Brien did the trick today.

* One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “It’s okay to ask for help,” and I’m asking for your help. If you consider yourself a super-fan of The Happiness Project (I ask sheepishly), and would be willing to help me out in a few ways, I’d love to hear from you.

First item: before long, I’m going to launch my super-secret, super-fabulous, happiness-related website. I’ll send the super-fans the link ahead of time, in case they’d be interested in being beta testers (i.e., using the site in its early stages, to help work out the kinks before I make it public).

If you’re not interested in that sort of thing, there are some other issues that will come up in the next few months -- all purely voluntary, of course, so if you sign up as a super-fan but then don’t want to do anything, that’s perfectly fine.

If any kind souls would like to sign up, please just drop me an email at gretchenrubin1[at]gmail[dot com]. (I added brackets to thwart spammers, but just use the usual email format.) No need to write anything more than “super-fan” in the subject line, and I’ll put your name on the list.

Welcome to the Most Depressing Day of the Year

Apparently, according to a mathematical formula devised by Cliff Arnall, today is the most depressing day of 2009. Arnall’s formula considers factors like people’s failure to keep up their new year’s resolutions, the weather, post-holidays blues (no more fun, lots of bills), and the fact it's a Monday.

Paradoxically, I got a happiness boost from someone’s claim that today is the year’s most depressing day. First of all, I got a kick out of the idea of trying to identify the most depressing day with a formula. Silly, but fun. What factors would you use to identify your own personal “most depressing day” formula? You’d probably come up with a very different day, based on the end of basketball season, the opening of bathing-suit season, etc.

In any event, in the United States, this formula is certainly not accurate this year (Arnall is from the U.K.). Today is a Monday, but it’s a holiday, and that raises people’s spirits. Also, it’s the day before President-elect Obama’s inauguration. While most Inauguration Days probably don’t do much to lift people’s moods, this one is different.

But second, even aside from considering the accuracy of the claim, just hearing the announcement that today is “the year’s most depressing day” makes the day seem better. Even if I have a bad day today, I’m not likely to think, “Gosh, this is going to turn out to have been the most depressing day of the year.” Things aren’t likely to be that bad.

There’s a psychological term for this: downward comparison. Comparing my Jan. 19th with the most depressing day I can imagine makes today seem bright. Downward comparisons tend to boost happiness, because they remind us to be grateful for what we have. In one study, people’s sense of life satisfaction changed dramatically depending on whether they completed sentences starting “I’m glad I’m not …” (downward comparison) compared with “I wish I was …” (upward comparison).

So, today, if you’re feeling blue, you’re not alone—and if you’re not feeling blue, you can appreciate that.

* I was thrilled to be included in this list of 5 Web Folk I Admire—Something I Don't Do Easily on Dan Perlman's blog, Enquiring Mimes.

*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. Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.