Gretchen Craft Rubin (born December 14, 1965) is an American author, blogger and speaker.
He is my fate. He's my soul mate. He pervades my whole existence. So, of course, I often ignore him.
I'm a creature of routine, and I hate feeling incompetent, so I avoided novelty and challenge. Making an effort to push myself in that way has brought me surprising boost.
One of my Secrets of Adulthood is: Most decisions don't require extensive research.
Volunteering to help others is the right thing to do, and it also boosts personal happiness
Self-knowledge makes me happy.
One of the things that surprised me the most is how often we assume that because something's fun for someone else, it makes somebody else happy, it will make us happy.
Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens.
Having a messy coat closet should not be a big deal in a full life, and yet there's something about getting control of that coat closet that's surprisingly satisfying.
Look for happiness under your own roof.
The thing that inspires me most is reading and just observing the people around me. I think those are the two things that make me want to write.
We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently. Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. ” Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.
. . . one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.
I have a lucky perfume. I love beautiful smells, but I save one of my favorite perfumes to wear only when I feel like I need some extra luck.
One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
It's so easy to wish that we'd made an effort in the past, so that we'd happily be enjoying the benefit now, but when now is the time when that effort must be made, as it always is, that prospect is much less inviting.
People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason, in a way that animals can’t do.
One of the best ways to make yourself happy in the present is to recall happy times from the past. Photos are a great memory-prompt, and because we tend to take photos of happy occasions, they weight our memories to the good.
Forbearance is a form of generosity.
Turns out that people who try new things, go new places, learn new skills, etc. are happier. This can be tough, because novelty and challenge also bring frustration and irritation - but if you can push through that, novelty and challenge can bring enormous happiness rewards.
People feel happier when they feel like they're progressing. When they feel like something in their life is growing or getting better.