You can be happier by reading this post
I'm pretty sure that the people who pay attention to happiness research are actually happier people. And happiness begets happiness. So I have a feeling that me just writing a post about happiness, and you reading it makes us all happier.
Here is why I think that:
Recently, Gretchen Rubin sent me her new book, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.
Let me tell you now, I am not a huge fan of the book. She is writing about her life, but her life is not all that interesting. The thing about reading stories about people’s lives is that we like conflict. That's what every novel is, it's what every memoir is. If there's no conflict then there is no path to follow in a story line.
Gretchen's conflict in this story about her is how can she be happier. Gretchen reports that she is already happy. She has an investment banker husband, two seemingly just fine daughters, a nice apartment in Manhattan, former-model good looks, etc. She basically (as she says in her forward to the book) needs something to talk about at cocktail parties. So she is writing a book so she can talk about it.
What I realized, though, is that while Gretchen’s conflict doesn't make for great reading, it is good to surround yourself with people like Gretchen: People who are basically happy and want to talk about it. Because happiness is contagious. So I kept reading the book. And, you know what? I didn’t love the book, but I love that it made me think a lot more about the stuff she wrote about.
(Not that New York City is the place to be happy, by the way. It's not. It's not because people in NYC value being interesting over being happy — which probably presents a special problem to Gretchen at cocktail parties, but I won't go into that. Also, it's clear that happy people attract happy people because Live Science reports that people in New York City are more unhappy than the rest of the country.)
Tiziana Casciaro, professor at University of Toronto, does really interesting research about social skills. And one thing she told me is that it’s very hard to gauge your own progress in the social skills department, but if you are making a conscious effort to improve your social skills then it is a safe bet that they are, on some level, improving.
And there is research that if you focus on something every day, by either writing it down every day, or at least committing to prioritizing it each day — you are much more likely to achieve that.
I think the same is true about happiness. If you pay attention to the research, whether or not you consciously implement it, the mere act of accessing the information is commitment enough to instigate change in your happiness level. (You can type “happiness” into the search box on the sidebar of my blog to find the results of my own obsessive collection of research on this topic.)
The other thing that should make you want to talk about happiness and read about happiness is that to think that you can affect your own happiness is a fundamentally positive step. Optimism about the future is a keystone of happiness. And people who think they have control over the outcome of their life — that they are the locus of control — are happier.
If you say all the happiness research is tiresome and circular — which I have said before — it might be true, but thinking that way actually does not improve your happiness. (Although it does probably make your more interesting, because conflict and cynicism are interesting.)
Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychology professor at the University of California-Riverside, wrote a great book on all the tiny little things you can do to make yourself happier on a daily basis. The book is The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. It’s an inspiring book because the things we can do are so small, like, give someone a surprise compliment. But you don’t need to do that today. And neither do I. Because I think, for today, getting to the end of this post counts.
Music, shoes and food, especially food make me happy.
And, hence, why “good news” is covered so rarely in journalism. Or, as I’ve sometimes observed, Journalism schools come from the English department, and not the History department.
The reason that’s worth observing is, life and reality don’t always fit neat templates of plot. Focussing solely on the stories that do leaves one completely blind to the stories that don’t, no matter how “boring” many people may find them.
I’ve always liked Neal Stephenson’s idea, which he wrote up in Wired, of placing cameras in a regular grid on the planet, and then having a channel where random ones get a minute a piece. The point would be to show how news is severely concentrated, and in most places on Earth at any given time nothing remarkable is taking place.
It seems quite a few comments says that ‘happiness’ and ‘interesting’ cannot go together. In fact, it’s a false dichotomy, or rather being interested can go a long way to be happy. This is kind of central theme to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow concept. Martin Seligman/ George Valliant/ Abraham Maslow, etc have some significant works directly towards happiness/well being. Many empirical findings do confirm that.
I agree, P. I think the topics she covers are quite interesting, but there is something innately off-putting about taking happiness advice from someone with a seemingly perfect life. That immediately struck me upon reading her about-me section, as well.
Sorry, Ben – people like me read blogs for free because they are FREE. If you want to charge for your content, do so. Then let the marketplace decide if what you’re posting is worth buying. Penelope here has never flogged anything of her own, at least not in the incessant and fakely modest way that Gretchen Rubin has. I don’t “expect” free content – it’s there so I read it. If you really don’t understand why GR’s tone and self-promotion, not to mention editing of comments that aren’t 100% glowing and positive about her, are irritating, maybe you should get out of the blogosphere. Penelope is 100x more authentic than GR and 100x more compelling as a result.
love how katenonymous reduces all people in new york to an “ilk”. that would be like me puting all californians in the “blond/happy” box. perhaps you don’t understand that like so many places, new york’s people can be characterized myriad ways. some of us are genuinely happy, like that people are usually in close proximity, and value being happy on the same level as being “interested”, someone’s helpful statistics be damned.
“interesting” is in the eye of the beholder, and not what penelope is talking about, btw.
ben, if gretchen offered something truly different or dimensionalized in her book from her blog content, that might be so. but the cheap publishing gimmick that sees blogs converted to books, particularly on an “IMHO” subject like happiness, is no better than “reality television” being considered real entertainment. rubin’s content is probably better off as a blog. if you think the content merits compensation, there are other ways to monetize her traffic that are more interesting and sustainable than another pithy book speeding its way to the deeply discounted table. not everything merits a book.
NPR did a show on the necessary shortage of happiness in a certain area as fuel for the drive to progress. i.e. — It is necessary to be less than happy about something in order to make changes to it. So I think the key to happiness is (1) knowing that we will never be fully satisfied, and (2) constantly finding new things in which to be interested and in which to contribute. We are then temporarily happy in our contribution and interested in the subject at hand — oh, and hopefully changing the world for the better!
JP, you make me very happy! This blog post actually bores me.
Would it be legit to say, “Sorry this relationship isn’t going to work, I’m a maximizer?”
I totally agree with the author of this article. The author says “Happiness is contagious”, but, I want to add, sadness is also contagious. Most of my friends, however, choose to worry, choose to be sad and choose pessimism over optimism. And, they like to call me to get that extra attention about their problems.
Happiness is something that you choose. We can choose to accept our pasts and futures, learn from it, and grow from it. Or, we can choose to worry, stress, have sleepless nights, and never be happy.
I choose to plan ahead and be happy with whatever that comes my way. I hope you do too.
Good sum-up post. I’ve implemented some of the ideas in my life and they have worked out. To be honest though I think this “positive-thinking” self-help stuff is getting kinda old. But to each his (or her) own.
Being a positive thinker is always a winner if you are always happy of what you are doing. Just like her post she contributed now, it makes her feel happy and we should be happy of what makes her develop as a person to whole.
While there are always exceptions, usually, how you tell yourself you feel is how you feel. If you say you are happy, and act happy, you are happy–like the old cliché–if it looks like a duck and waddles like a duck….it’s a duck!
There really is something to be said for self-fulfilling prophecies. I honestly believe that you can change your life, and how you feel, just by convincing yourself that “You can be happier by reading this post.”
Now, I am happy!
I could not agree more with you that “happiness begets happiness”
I find the simple things in life make me happy… relaxation… a great wet shave! A hearty meal…
Penelope, I’m also from Wisconsin. Chetek Wisconsin originally. A tiny north western town and now I live in Eau Claire. Like you though I’ve lived elsewhere for the rest of my adult life before returning here.
I’ve lived in Omaha, D.C., and Cambridge MA in that order.
I liked living in each of those cities for different reasons. I’ve realized though that I see my life as an adventure so wherever I am I carry that with me.
I don’t know that people are happier in Wisconsin. Maybe. If so I think it’s because many of the people I know do not know what else is out there.
They think this is it. It’s not. If they had a glimpse of the rest of the world I have a feeling they wouldn’t be as happy.
Nice article, thanks for the information.
There are many things that make you happy, but everyone’s different & unique. I try to concentrate on things that make me happy & try to put myself in pleasent situations whenever possible. I try to avoid areas which can lead to stress or unpleasantness & concentrate on areas of potential happiness & fufillment. Health & happiness & the two best ingredients in life.
Mark :)
Very interesting blog Penelope and makes me think a bit of Maslow’s concept of autorealization or self fulfillment. However also hard to achieve that happiness and focus when other needs are not fulfilled…
Great article. The idea is to be happy. Who doesn’t want to be happy? We live all our lives trying to be happy in whatever way we can. Funny thing is, we wont be even having this discussion if all of us just went ahead and made up our minds on being happy.
“A man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.” Abraham Lincoln
“Fifty-plus years of living have taught me that ol’ Abe is right about this one”
Thanks for the simple yet wise words…
I’m happier now.
Thank you so much.
They say that you can become happier in many different ways. I don’t think that reading a blog post is one of them. However I did learn a lot by reading your post and I do think that knowledge is happiness, or at least for me.
The post didn’t make me happier but it sure made me realize that if there’s something I badly want, I need to focus on it and every detail of my life and activities should be centrifugally focused towards achieving it.
I have been reading your newsletter for half a year now; but commenting for the first time (practicing to be more vocal about my feelings "new year resolution")…. This was a pretty long and well researched article and gave me a totally different perspective of the usual quotes I hear all the time..
Thank you for sharing this is such an interesting post. You are simply brilliant.
Wish you and your loved ones a happy and interesting year ahead.