Blog Posts by Gretchen Rubin

Rachel-Bertsche

Happiness interview: Rachel Bertsche.

I got to know Rachel Bertsche because I stumbled upon her blog, MWF Seeking BFF, which is all about the challenge of making friends as an adult. Making and keeping friends is is one of the most common, and also most significant, happiness challenges; friendship is very, very important to happiness, but as adults, we often don't have the time and opportunities to build and strengthen those relationships.

Rachel's book, MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend, just hit the shelves. In it, she talks about her adventures as she tried to meet and make friends after she moved to a new city. The relationship between friendship and happiness is a constant theme in the book, so I was eager to here more about her views on hapipness.

Gretchen: What's a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Rachel: Spending time with friends. Even if I'm exhausted and want nothing more than to go home and crash on the

ResolutionsForty-four percent of Americans make New Year's resolutions, and I know I always do. I'm more inclined to make resolutions than ever, in fact, because if my happiness project has convinced me of anything, it has convinced me that resolutions-made right-can make a huge difference in boosting happiness.

So how do you resolve well? This is trickier than it sounds. Here are some tips for making your resolutions as effective as possible.

1. Ask: "What would make me happier?" It might having more of something good -more fun with friends, more time for a hobby. It might be less of something bad -less yelling at your kids, less nagging of your spouse. It might be fixing something that doesn't feel right-more time spent volunteering, more time doing something to make someone else happier. Or maybe you need to get an atmosphere of growth in your life by learning something new, helping someone, or fixing something that isn't working properly. (These questions relate to the First Splendid

2011 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2011 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2011 a happier year -- and even if you haven't officially signed up for the challenge -- welcome for this last week of 2011.

For the last month of this year, instead of tackling a theme, I'm going to discuss a question: What is the key to happiness? That's a question that can be answered in different ways, depending on what framework you use to address the issue of happiness. The resolution for each week will reflect that week's answer.

Last week's answer was to Know yourself. This week's answer is First things first.

First Things First

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
Do first things first.
Manage pain.
7 tips for dealing with a sweetheart who is constantly crabby.

How about you? Have you found that when you're trying to get happier or stay happy, it helps to think about the basics?

If you're new, here's information on the 2011

Presents_new

December is the month of gift-giving, and my birthday falls in December, so I get practically all my gifts during this month.

Often when I read, I'm struck by a particular passage without understanding why it has caught my attention, then over time, its significance becomes clear. I've read Story of a Soul, the spiritual memoir of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (my spiritual master), several times. Recently, I suddenly realized why I kept thinking about one particular paragraph.

Its context: one day in 1897, when she in her early twenties, and weakened by the tuberculosis that would soon kill her, Thérèse was sitting in her wheelchair in the garden of her convent. Ordered by her Prioress to complete an account of her childhood memories, she was trying unsuccessfully to write:

BookpilewithHappinessProject

Have I suggested that The Happiness Project might make a good holiday gift? I have? Oh right, maybe I have.

You may be thinking, "Well, Gretchen, you say your book is good, but why should I believe you?" Consider: The Happiness Project is a #1 New York Times bestseller and has now been on the bestseller list for 40 weeks, is being translated into more than thirty-five languages (check out the foreign cover gallery), and was even a question on the quiz show Jeopardy! (Which I still can't quite believe.)

If you read the blog, you may be thinking, "Well, I don't want to be rude, but I can read your stuff here for free, so why should I buy the book?" Good question. Consider these reasons...

Waiting_in_line

It's holiday time, and that means waiting in line: at the grocery store, at the airport, at shops, everywhere. I'm an impatient person, and standing in a slow-moving line is one of those very small, maddening aspects of life that drives me crazy. As often happens, however, when I learned more about the experience, it became more interesting to me.

Fun fact from the Wall Street Journal story on Find the best checkout line: you're better off waiting in a single-file line than in one of several lines for different cashiers; although people prefer individual lines, a single-file line moves about three times faster.

I also read a paper by David Maister, The Psychology of Waiting Lines. The piece is aimed at people who operate stores, restaurants, doctors' offices, and other places where people fuss about being kept waiting. Of course, most of us are the ones standing in line, not the ones controlling the line, but I was fascinated by getting this insight into my own psychology.

2011 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2011 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2011 a happier year -- and even if you haven't officially signed up for the challenge -- welcome!

For the last month of this year, instead of tackling a theme, I'm going to discuss a question: What is the key to happiness? That's a question that can be answered in different ways, depending on what framework you use to address the issue of happiness. The resolution for each week will reflect that week's answer.

Last week's answer was to Cultivate strong relationships. This week's answer is to Know yourself.

Know yourself.

It's a little hard to see what I'm holding in my hand. That's a mirror.

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
Self-knowledge: Identify your patron saints.
Do what you do.
Recognize your tell.

What do you think? Is self-knowledge the key to happiness? Do you find it hard to know yourself? I'm constantly amazed by how

I-love-you

Over the weekend, I read Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages, and I found it fascinating. (I have to confess: the book caught my attention because it's always clustered near, and above, The Happiness Project on the New York Times bestseller list.)

One of the tensions within happiness, for me, is that I'm both more like other people than I suppose, and less like other people than I suppose. For instance, I thought I was the only person who struggled to spend out, but now I realize that many people feel this, too. Same with drift. I'd suffered from drift in my life, but I didn't realize how many others had also found themselves drifting.

On the other hand, it's easy to assume that other people are like me, when they really aren't. Until I understood the abstainer/moderator split, I couldn't understand why moderators didn't just give up their temptations cold turkey. Or why Eeyores clung so tightly to their worldview.

The Five Love Languages argues that people express