Blog Posts by Gretchen Rubin

Reidhoffman

Happiness interview: Reid Hoffman.

Years ago, when I was just starting to blog, one of the first people I met from blogland was Ben Casnocha, who wrote a great blog about entrepreneurship, books, and ideas, and who was still in college (if I remember correctly) at the time.

He does a lot of things and has a lot of interests, so I wasn't surprised to hear that he was teaming up to write a book with Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, the wildly popular social network particularly useful for business connections and job searching.

Their book, The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, just hit the shelves a few months ago and has generated a lot of buzz. It's about how to think about yourself as a start-up business: to invest in yourself, to build your networks, to take smart risks, to exploit uncertainty.

Thinking about the elements of a happy life is one aspect of doing a start-up based on yourself, so I was

Google

I love a good manifesto. I love Bob Sutton's manifesto about work, and Madame X's manifesto about money, and Frank Lloyd Wright's manifesto for his apprentices.

Somehow, I'd never come across Google's Ten things we know to be true manifesto, and I found it very interesting.

The Google site explains, "We first wrote these 10 things when Google was just a few years old. From time to time we revisit this list to see if it still holds true. We hope it does-and you can hold us to that."

Very thought-provoking. Though people might disagree

Pigeonofdiscontent

Each week this year, I'm posting a video about some Pigeon of Discontent that a reader has raised in the comments. Because, as much as we try to find the Bluebird of Happiness, we're also plagued by the Pigeons of Discontent.

These aren't the major happiness challenges that we face, but rather, those little nagging problems that settle into roost.

I'm constantly surprised by what a big happiness boost I can get from small changes. As Samuel Johnson wrote, "It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible." Tackling small nuisances has a big influence on my day.

What Pigeon of Discontent is messing with you lately? Please post your suggestions below, as fodder for possible future videos. If you'd like to see previous Pigeon videos, you can find them here.

• The other night I has a lot of fun talking to Jenny Komenda of the terrific DIY and design blog, Little Green Notebook.

• Join the

Computerkeyboard

For the last few days, I've been struggling with a very unstable computer (yes, this is apparently a technical term).

It seems to be behaving itself now, and I am so happy! I take my word-processer, my email, and my internet access for granted, but when they aren't available as easily as usual, I realize how much these tools add to my happiness and how much they contribute to my ability to work easily and smoothly.

One of the unhappy truths about human nature is that it's hard for us to appreciate what we have, until we lose it. When we lose something like electricity or running water, or worse, our health, then it's clear how mightily such things contribute to happiness and comfort.

In college, a friend told me about the "Lost Wallet Syndrome." "No matter what's happening in your life," he explained, "if you lose your wallet, you think, 'How happy I would be if I would only find my wallet.' But then, if you find it, you're happy for about two minutes, and then you're

Lehrer

Happiness interview: Jonah Lehrer.

I'm a huge fan of Jonah Lehrer's work-and there's a lot of it, because he's insanely prolific-and I'm tremendously interested in the subjects he covers both in his books and in his writings for periodicals like the Wall Street Journal. I rushed out to read How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist, and I just got my hands on his brand-new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works (an instant New York Times bestseller).

His writing often touches on the issue of happiness, so I wanted to hear what he had to say.

Gretchen: What's a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Jonah: I'm a walker. When I feel stuck or stumped or stressed, I go for a stroll, the longer the better. The actual location doesn't really matter. I can derive equal satisfaction from the crush of pedestrians in Manhattan and the desolate landscape of the California desert. I like the beach and the hills, the cities and exurbs.

One of the pleasures of

2012 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2012 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2012 a happier year-and even if you haven't officially signed up for the challenge-welcome! 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 the Pigeons of Discontent.

This week's Pigeon of Discontent, suggested by a reader, is: "I don't know how I want my home I look."

I Don't Know How I Want My Home To Look.

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
7 books that changed the way I see the world.
Quiz: Is your workspace driving you crazy?
How to make yourself happier through "growth."

How about you? Have you found ways to figure out how you want your home to look, if you're not a person who naturally has a strong sense of that?

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

Bunnytoy

Yesterday, I scored a rare victory: I hit on a solution that allowed me to satisfy several resolutions, all meant to make my home more homey, in one stroke. I was able to:

• Clear clutter
• Make life more festive, and
• Make it more festive without giving myself much more work

I laid the groundwork for this solution last year, and yesterday, I saw it pay off.

Last Easter, I had a brilliant idea. I realized that, of the dozens of stuffed animals that cram our shelves, many were bunnies. I went around the apartment and gathered up all the bunnies I could find, stuck them into a bag, and put them away with the Easter decorations. (We have enough stuffed animals that my daughters didn't notice the mass bunny disappearance.)

This year, when I was filling in for the Easter Bunny on Saturday night, I unpacked the several bunnies and sat them around the room (which took five minutes). I was impressed; it was an easy task, yet the bunnies' color and whimsy added

Macaroni-cheese1

One common happiness question is: How do you give yourself a boost? If you're feeling anxious, blue, angry, scared, what can you do to soothe yourself?

Recently, I posted 5 myths for fighting the blues. Okay, those don't work very well. So what does?

One suggestion: find a "comfort food" for your mind. Know what you can do with your brain that will give yourself a comforting break from your worries, at least for a little while. By doing so, you'll re-charge your battery, find it easier to stay calm and cheerful, find it easier to take action to remedy your situation-and you'll sleep better. But this is easier said than done.

We all suffer from "negativity bias," that is, we react to the bad more strongly and persistently than to the comparable good. (What do you remember better, a compliment or a criticism?) Research shows one consequence of negativity bias is that when people's thoughts wander, they tend to begin to brood. Anxious or angry thoughts capture our