The Happiness Project Read online

  MASTER A NEW TECHNOLOGY.

  To me, making books sounded like fun. As a child, I’d spent countless hours working on my Blank Books. I’d written two horrible novels before I became a professional writer. Throughout my life, I’d made minibook projects as gifts for my family and friends. When I thought about the projects that I’d loved doing with Eliza, they all involved making books.

  For example, she and I made a book using some of her bright, elaborate drawings. She dictated a caption for each picture while I typed; then we cut out the captions, taped them on the pictures, made color copies, and had the copies spiral-bound into a book. It was a fun project to work on, made a wonderful keepsake, supplied a Christmas/Hanukkah gift for the grandparents, captured a moment in Eliza’s development, and allowed me to throw away the enormous stacks of pictures without a smidgen of guilt. (However, I will admit that when I wrote about this project on my blog, one reader was shocked: “I can’t believe you actually threw out the originals of your daughter’s drawings. I would have made the copies, as you did, but bound the originals into a scrapbook of sorts. The originals can NEVER be duplicated. I must confess to actually gasping when I read this.”)

  Recently I’d been intrigued to read about a self-publishing site, Lulu.com. According to the Web site, I could print a proper hardback book, complete with dust jacket, for less than thirty dollars. I mentioned this to Jamie, and he snorted, “What would anyone use that for?”

  “You mean, who has book-length documents lying around that they’d like to print in book form?” I asked.

  “Right.”

  “Are you kidding? Me!” I said. “If this works, I’ll print up a dozen.” At last, something to do with all those notes I’d been taking without a purpose. For the trial run, I made a book out of the journal I’d kept for the first eighteen months of Eliza’s life (another book I’d written without really noticing it). I sat down at the computer, preparing to “put myself in jail” to cope with my frustration and my desire to rush. Instead, the whole process took about twenty minutes.

  When my self-published book arrived a few weeks later, it exceeded my wildest expectations. There was my baby journal! As a real book! What next? I did a book of my favorite quotations about the nature of biography, I did a book of my favorite uncategorized quotations, and I fantasized about future books. When I finished my research on happiness, I’d print out a book of my favorite happiness quotations; maybe I could even include photo illustrations. I’d make a book of my blog posts. I’d print out my novel, Happiness. I’d print up my one-sentence journal—I could even make copies for the girls! Plus I had so many ideas for great happiness-related books. If I couldn’t publish them with a real publisher, I would publish them myself.

  I also learned that through Shutterfly, an online photo ser vice site, I could print a hardback photo album. Figuring out how to do this turned out to be challenging, but eventually I mastered it, and once I was done, I ordered a copy for us and the grandparents, and everyone received a neat, organized book, stuffed with photos. Although it was expensive, I reminded myself that not only was I keeping my resolution to “Master a new technology,” I was also keeping my resolutions to “Make purchases that will further my goals,” “Indulge in a modest splurge,” and “Be a treasure house of happy memories.”

  And once I got through the painful learning curve, it was fun. The novelty and challenge of mastering the technology—though I was maddened with frustration at times—did give me enormous satisfaction, and it gave me a new way to pursue my passion for books.

  Of all the months so far, September’s resolutions had been the most pleasant and easiest to maintain. This showed me, once again, that I was happier when I accepted my own real likes and dislikes, instead of trying to decide what I ought to like; I was happier when I stopped squelching the inclinations toward note taking and bookmaking that I’d had since childhood and instead embraced them. As Michel de Montaigne observed, “The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.”

  I needed to accept my own nature—yet I needed to push myself as well. This seemed contradictory, but in my heart, I knew the difference between lack of interest and fear of failure. I’d seen this in March with my blog. Although I’d been nervous about launching a blog, I did recognize that running a blog is the kind of thing I would like to do. In fact, I realized, my work on my childhood Blank Books, where I had pulled together interesting information, copied quotations, and matched text with striking images, sounded an awful lot like…posting to my blog. Sheesh. In fact, once I realized that, I decided to give up working on my new Blank Book. I’d had fun working on it since May, and I’d gotten a nostalgic kick from resuming an activity that had given me so much pleasure in childhood, but I’d grown tired of it. My blog had taken its place as an outlet to record the odds and ends I felt compelled to gather.

  On the very last day of the month, I had an important realization: my Fourth Splendid Truth. Jamie and I were having dinner with a guy we knew slightly. He asked me what I was working on, and after I described the happiness project, he said, in polite disagreement, that he himself subscribed to John Stuart Mill’s view—and he gave the precise quotation from Mill, I was impressed—“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

  One of the problems of thinking about happiness all the time is that I’ve developed rather decided views. I wanted to pound the table and yell, “No, no, NO!” Instead, I managed to nod and say in a mild voice, “Yes, a lot of people take that view. I can’t say that I agree.”

  I could see it in the guy’s face: John Stuart Mill v. Gretchen Rubin. Hmmm…who’s more likely to be right? But, in my experience at least, thinking about happiness had made me far happier than I was before I gave happiness much consideration. Now, Mill may have been referring to the state of “flow” identified by the researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In flow, it’s true, people are completely absorbed, so focused on their tasks that they forget themselves at the perfect balance of challenge and skill. But I think that Mill meant, or people generally believe, that thinking about your happiness makes you self-absorbed; you’re not thinking about other people, work, or anything other than your own satisfaction. Or perhaps Mill meant that happiness comes as a consequence of pursuing other goals, such as love and work, and shouldn’t be a goal in itself.

  Of course it’s not enough to sit around wanting to be happy; you must make the effort to take steps toward happiness by acting with more love, finding work you enjoy, and all the rest. But for me, asking myself whether I was happy had been a crucial step toward cultivating my happiness more wisely through my actions. Also, only through recognizing my happiness did I really appreciate it. Happiness depends partly on external circumstances, and it also depends on how you view those circumstances.

  I’d thought about this question many times during the course of the year, but finally it hit me that this was my Fourth Splendid Truth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy. Then it struck me that the Fourth Splendid Truth has a corollary: You’re happy if you think you’re happy.

  And that means thinking about happiness, no matter what John Stuart Mill said.

  10

  OCTOBER

  Pay Attention

  MINDFULNESS

  Meditate on koans.

  Examine True Rules.

  Stimulate the mind in new ways.

  Keep a food diary.

  When I told people I was working on a book about happiness, the single most common response was “You should spend some time studying Buddhism.” (A close second was “So are you drinking a bottle of wine every night?”) The Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness was the book most often recommended to me.

  I’d always been intrigued by Buddhism, so I was eager to learn more about both the religion and the life of the Buddha. But although I admired many of its teachings, I didn’t feel much deep connection to Buddhism, which, at its he
art, urges detachment as a way to alleviate suffering. Although there is a place for love and commitment, these bonds are considered fetters that bind us to lives of sorrow—which of course they do. Instead, I’m an adherent of the Western tradition of cultivating deep passions and profound attachments; I didn’t want to detach, I wanted to embrace; I didn’t want to loosen, I wanted to deepen. Also, the Western tradition emphasizes the expression and the perfection of each unique, individual soul; not so in the Eastern tradition.

  Nevertheless, studying Buddhism made me realize the significance of some concepts that I’d overlooked. The most important was mindfulness—the cultivation of conscious, nonjudgmental awareness.

  I have several tendencies that run counter to mindfulness. I constantly multitask in ways that pull me away from my present experience. I often run on automatic pilot—arriving home with no recollection of having gone from point A to point B. (This sometimes terrifies me when I’m driving; I have no recollection of watching the road.) I tend to dwell on anxieties or hopes for the future, instead of staying fully aware in the present moment. I often break or spill things because I’m not paying attention. When I’m introduced to someone in a social situation, I often forget the person’s name as soon as I hear it. I finish eating before I’ve even registered the taste of my food.

  In September a jarring experience had reminded me of the importance of mindfulness. After a pleasant family weekend, spent mostly going to children’s birthday parties (three in two days), I was walking down the hallway after putting both girls to bed. All of a sudden, as I headed to my desk to check my e-mails, I had the sensation that I was zooming back into my body. It was as if I had just returned from a two-week trip away from myself. The very hallway in which I stood seemed unfamiliar, yet I’d been living my ordinary life the whole time. It was very, very unnerving. If I was just getting back home—where had I been? I needed to do a better job of staying in the moment.

  Mindfulness brings many benefits: scientists point out that it calms the mind and elevates brain function, it gives clarity and vividness to present experience, it may help people break unhealthy habits, and it can soothe troubled spirits and lift people’s moods. It reduces stress and chronic pain. It makes people happier, less defensive, and more engaged with others.

  One highly effective way to practice mindfulness is through meditation, which is recommended by Buddhists as a spiritual exercise and also by happiness experts of all sorts. Nevertheless, I just couldn’t bring myself to try meditation. (I took yoga twice a week, but my class didn’t emphasize the mental aspect of yoga.)

  “I just can’t believe you’re not practicing meditation,” a friend chided me. “If you’re studying happiness, you really have to try it.” She herself was a veteran of a ten-day silent meditation retreat. “The fact that you don’t want to try meditation means that you need it desperately.”

  “You’re probably right.” I sighed. “But I just can’t bring myself to do it. It holds no appeal for me.”

  Everyone’s happiness project is unique. I enjoyed posting to my blog six days a week—a task that some people wouldn’t dream of undertaking—but sit in silence for fifteen minutes each day, as my friend urged? I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Another friend made an eloquent case for why I should spend more time in nature. Both arguments left me cold. When I’d started planning my happiness project, I told myself that I would try everything, but I’d quickly realized that this goal was neither possible nor desirable. Perhaps I’d try meditation in Happiness Project II, but for now I would seek happiness in the ways that seemed most natural to me.

  There were other ways to harness the power of mindfulness, however, apart from meditation. I was already using my Resolutions Chart, a practice that led me to act more mindfully through the purposeful review of my actions and my thoughts. I filled in my chart at the end of the day, at a quiet time when I was undistracted and alone—though, given the nature of my personality, this period of self-examination felt more like conversation with Jiminy Cricket than communion with the universe. This month, I sought to find other strategies that would help me pay attention and stay in the moment. I also hoped to stimulate my brain to think in new ways—to jolt myself out of automatic behavior and to awaken sleepy parts of my mind.

  MEDITATE ON KOANS.

  Although I didn’t take up meditation, I did find certain aspects of Buddhism fascinating. I was struck by the symbolism of Buddhism, the way the Buddha was sometimes portrayed by an empty seat, a pair of footprints, a tree, or a pillar of fire to signify that he’d passed beyond form. I loved the numbered lists that pop up throughout Buddhism: the Triple Refuge; the Noble Eightfold Path; the Four Noble Truths; the eight auspicious symbols: parasol, golden fish, treasure vase, lotus, conch shell, endless knot, victory banner, and dharma wheel.

  The aspect that intrigued me most, however, was the study of Zen koans (rhymes with Ben Cohen’s). A koan is a question or a statement that can’t be understood logically. Zen Buddhist monks meditate on koans as a way to abandon dependence on reason in their pursuit of enlightenment. The most famous koan is “Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?” Another is “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.” Or “What was your face before your parents were born?” A koan can’t be grasped by reason or explained in words; meditating on koans promotes mindful thinking because it’s not possible to comprehend their meaning with familiar, conventional logic.

  After I learned about koans, I realized that I already had my own list of personal koans—I just hadn’t thought of them that way. For years, in another example of seemingly pointless note taking, I’d been keeping a list of enigmatic lines, and in odd moments, I’d think about them. I was surprised to see how many I’d collected. My favorites:

  Robert Frost: The best way out is always through.

  J. M. Barrie: We set out to be wrecked.

  Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: I choose all.

  Francis Bacon/Heraclitus: Dry light is ever the best.

  Mark 4:25: For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.

  Gertrude Stein: I like a room with a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.

  Elias Canetti: Kant Catches Fire.

  T. S. Eliot: Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”/Let us go and make our visit.

  Virginia Woolf: She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.

  These fragments haunted me. They floated through my mind at odd times—when I was waiting on a subway platform or staring at my computer screen—and they seemed strangely relevant in many circumstances.

  The personal koan I reflected on most often was a Spanish proverb quoted by Samuel Johnson in Boswell’s Life of Johnson: “He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.” I’d read that line years ago, and I often found myself turning it over in my mind. Much later, I’d discovered a reference in Henry David Thoreau’s Journal in which he echoed Johnson: “It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves…. I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador any greater wildness than in some recess of Concord, i.e. than I import into it.”

  With time, I think I began to grasp the meaning of these two koans, which had profound implications for a happiness project. I was trudging up the stairs of the library when I thought, “She who would find the happiness of the Indies must carry the happiness of the Indies with her.” I couldn’t look outside myself for happiness. The secret wasn’t in the Indies or in Labrador but under my own roof; if I wanted to find happiness, I had to carry happiness with me.

  Ruminating on my koans didn’t bring me any closer to satori, the lasting enlightenment promised by Zen (at least not as far as I could tell), but it did ignite my imagination. Because koans forced me to challenge the usual, straightforward boxes of meaning, they pushed me to think about thinking. That in turn brought me the delicious intellectual happin
ess that comes from grappling with an expansive, difficult question.

  EXAMINE TRUE RULES.

  Part of the challenge of mindfulness was to keep myself from falling into mechanical thoughts and actions. Instead of walking through life on autopilot, I wanted to question the assumptions I made without noticing.

  My research into cognitive science led me to the concept of heuristics. Heuristics are mental rules of thumb, the quick, commonsense principles you apply to solve a problem or make a decision. For example, the recognition heuristic holds that if you’re faced with two objects and you recognize one and don’t recognize the other, you assume that the recognized one is of higher value. So if you’ve heard of Munich but you haven’t heard of Minden, you assume that Munich is the larger German city; if you’ve heard of Rice Krispies cereal but you haven’t heard of Wild Oats cereal, you assume that Rice Krispies is the more popular brand.

  Usually heuristics are helpful, but in some situations our cognitive instincts mislead us. Take the availability heuristic: people predict the likelihood of an event based on how easily they can come up with an example. This is often useful (is a tornado likely to hit Manhattan?), but sometimes a person’s judgment is skewed because the vividness of examples makes an event seem more likely than it actually is. A friend of mine, for example, is hypervigilant about not eating anything that might contain raw eggs. She practically went into hysterics when she found out that her mother-in-law had allowed her kids to eat raw cookie batter. Why? Because her aunt got salmonella twenty-five years ago. This same friend, by the way, never wears a seat belt.

  Although they might not fit precisely into the definition of “heuristics,” I had my own idiosyncratic collection of principles—which I called “True Rules”—for making decisions and setting priorities. My father often talks about “True Rules.” For example, when I started working after college, he said, “Remember, it’s one of the True Rules—if you’re willing to take the blame, people will give you responsibility.” I’ve applied my own True Rules to help me make decisions, mostly without quite realizing that I was using them. They flicker through my brain so quickly that I have to make a real effort to detect them, but I identified a handful of rules that I frequently use: