Blog Posts by Gretchen Rubin

confrontationAssay: I'm always looking for patterns in people's actions and temperament. You know that old joke? "The world is divided into two groups: people who divide the world into two groups, and people who don't." I'm definitely in the first category.

I love learning about patterns, such as the "service heart," and I get a tremendous thrill whenever I manage to identify some new pattern myself. Abstainers and moderators. Over-buyers and under-buyers. Alchemists and leopards.

Here's a new phenomenon I've tentatively identified: oppositional conversational style.

A person with oppositional conversational style is a person who, in conversation, disagrees with and corrects whatever you say. He or she may do this in a friendly way, or a belligerent way, but this person frames remarks in opposition to whatever you venture.

I noticed this for the first time in a conversation with a guy a few months ago. We were talking about social media, and before long, I realized that whatever

DLD Conference 2009Happiness interview: Dan Ariely.

I just finished reading Dan Ariely's bestselling new book, The Honest Truth about Dishonesty: Why We Lie to Everyone-Especially Ourselves. It's a fascinating look at lying, truth-telling, and why it's much easier to slide into cheating than we realize or admit to ourselves.

Dan studies psychology and behavior economics, and his work explores the question-why do we do what we do? why do we often behave irrationally or in a way that seems inconsistent with our values? His other books, Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, also investigate these issues.

Because his area of research has so many implications for happiness, I was curious to hear what he had to say on the subject.

Gretchen: What's a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?

Dan: The simplest is probably riding my Segway. Every time I get on it, I get amazed by the ingenuity of the people who designed it. A less simple activity that

2cupscoffeeI'm in the middle of a very interesting book by Paul Adams, called Grouped. It's about how friends and networks work in an online environment.

Adams cites research by Liz Spencer and Ray Pahl (that I'm going to investigate; sounds fascinating) that identifies eight types of relationships, which can be characterized as "weak ties" or "strong ties":

Weak ties-people we don't know well, acquaintances:

Associates: don't know each other well, share a common activity (like a hobby)

Useful contacts: share information and advice (often related to work)

Fun friends: join for fun, don't provide emotional support

Favor friends: help each other out in a functional, not emotional way

Helpmates: combine characteristics of fun + favor friends

Strong ties-the people we care about most, our inner circle-most people have fewer than 10 strong ties, and many, fewer than 5

Comforters: helpmates with deeper emotional support

Confidants: share personal

Each week, I post a video about some Pigeon of Discontent raised by a reader. Because, as much as we try to find the Bluebird of Happiness, we're also plagued by those small but pesky Pigeons of Discontent.

This week's Pigeon of Discontent, suggested by a reader, is: "I want an uncluttered life (with less shopping)."

Click Here for video.

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…

5 tips for resisting impulse shopping.

11 tips for cutting down the number of things you buy.

"Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings…"

How about you? Have you found ways to keep yourself from making purchases that, over the long term, don't add to your happiness?

You can post your own Pigeon of Discontent at any time; also, from time to time, I'll make a special call for suggestions.

You can check out the archives of videos here.

Also ...

• I enjoy a visit to Momfilter--"a lifestyle playbook for families"--created by Pilar

gold_coinsAssay: I'm struck, when I reflect back on my education-years in grade school, high school, college, law school-by the things I remember. From all those years of study, what do I retain? Not much. But at odd moments, a random fact or snatch of poetry or phrase will float into my mind.

For instance, I can never see a daffodil without thinking of a line from Milton's "Lycidas": "And Daffadillies fill their cups with tears." Now, why do I remember that? I don't even remember reading "Lycidas," but that one line I remember.

This morning, I caught myself thinking about something I read in Erasmus's The Praise of Folly. I read this passage many years ago, and have never looked back at it, until just five minutes ago, but I've never forgotten it.

I'm quite impressed myself that I remembered where I'd read this idea; in fact, it isn't even in The Praise of Folly itself, it's in a footnote that explains a reference in the text to "the argument of the growing heap."

According

pantalonHappiness interview: Michael Pantalon.

I just finished reading Michael Pantalon's very helpful book, Instant Influence: How to Get Anyone To Do Anything-Fast. He argues that one of the most important things you can do to influence people is to…remind them that in the end, your influence doesn't matter. That is, to re-affirm their sense of autonomy. The more that people find their own reasons for action, and feel themselves to be acting in accordance with their own desires, the more likely they are to make positive changes. So the challenge is to help them do so.

There's a lot of interesting material in the book; for instance, here's one fact that fascinated me:

mirrorreflectionA key-perhaps the key-to a happy life is self-knowledge, because as the Fifth Splendid Truth holds, I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature. In my own case, I've found that the more my life reflects my real interests, values, and temperament, the happier I become.

But it's very hard to know ourselves; it's easy to be distracted by the way we wish we were, or think we ought to be, or what others think we should be, until we lose sight of what is actually true.

As Christopher Alexander observed: "It is hard, so terribly hard, to please yourself. Far from being the easy thing that it sounds like, it is almost the hardest thing in the world, because we are not always comfortable with that true self that lies deep within us."

Here is a list of questions meant to help you think about yourself, your daily habits, your nature, and your interests. There are no right or wrong answers; they're fodder for reflection.

If something is forbidden, do you

paycheckAssay: Over the weekend, I re-read a fascinating book, Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes.

I was thrilled to find discussion of some research that I'd thought about often, but had never been able to find again; I didn't take notes on it and couldn't remember where I'd seen it.

Eureka! There it was.

It's very interesting research about how people value money and pay.

Now, it's clear that when people don't have enough money to meet their basic needs, or when they're worried that they're going to lose a job, they're very focused on how much money they're paid. Money is like health: we tend to think about it most when we don't have it.

And it's also clear that people are very concerned with being paid fairly. For instance, if someone else is getting paid more to do the same job, that breeds unhappiness.

However-and this is the interesting part-once those conditions are met, money starts to