Happiness and buying the occasional paperback

Gretchen Rubin inscribing a book for her uncle at the Tattered Cover.

Last night, I had the opportunity of both seeing and meeting Gretchen Rubin at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. She wrote The Happiness Project and her follow-up, Happier at Home and they were both huge bestsellers. I read Happier at Home last year and it made my short list of the best books I read in 2013. Her book has stayed with me since I've read it. I even started reading Rubin's blog over the past year and that really kept the subject of happiness at the forefront of my mind. She's insightful an interesting and she's kept me thinking deeply about happiness and kept it a priority in my life.

So, I didn't really have plans to buy an autographed copy of Happier at Home since I rarely buy print books anymore (sad), but I just couldn't resist buying the new paperback. I check out most of my books from the library or read books on my Kindle these days.

 I really wanted to talk to Gretchen even if only for a minute. I always get so excited to talk to an author. (I know. I'm a total nerd.) After hearing her talk, I though I'd like to revisit her book again this year and that's a rare notion for me. I just don't have much time to go back and re-read books given that my to-read pile doesn't shrink, but there are some books that are really worth it. So, I bought a paperback of Happier at Home and had her inscribe it to Paul. I mean, my husband should read it too. He's heard me talk a lot about this for almost a year.

 Invest in the occasional paperback. Your happiness depends on it.

I thought I was Lupin

The other night, while I was at my book club, we were chatting about a fun quiz on Facebook that determines which Hogwarts house in which you will be sorted. The quiz is based upon the NEO-PI Personality Inventory that measures the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism).  I hoped I'd get sorted into Gryffindor, well, because, Hermione is awesome and Gryffindor is her house. However, the Sorting Hat put me in Hufflepuff and actually, Hufflepuff is the house for me. It's a fun little quiz, but it got me thinking about the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment. I'm something of a MBTI geek since I first took the test in college.

I took a handful of upper division psychology classes while in college and while I never thought I'd major in Psychology, I was fascinated with the subject especially personality. Over the years, I've taken the Myers-Briggs again and again always getting the same result: INFJ. See the above chart? I'm similar to Remus Lupin in personality. (It keeps coming back to Harry Potter.)

Out of all those letters, I most strongly identified with my "I". Introversion is something that seems to drive my whole being. I get introversion. I understand it well.

Well, the other day, while dealing with a grouchy twin who wasn't feeling well, I decided to take the Myers-Briggs again, but I couldn't find the actual test. Apparently, you have to pay for the real test, but there's all kinds of MBTI type tests on the internet. So, I took EIGHT different assessments! While I didn't really expect that every single test would yield the same result of INFJ, I was stunned to find that out of those eight tests, on half of them, I was sorted into the Extroverted category. On one test, Introversion/Extroversion were tied. I have long considered that I'm possibly in a third category: the Ambivert. I found this post a while back on the subject. Perhaps, I'm a good blend of both and introvert and extrovert?

 I don't believe that our personalities can be narrowed down into four letters, but I do think that the Myers Briggs Personality Assesment does help us understand ourselves much better. So, after rekindling my interest in the MBTI, I ordered this book:

These are my results:  INFP, ENFJ, ENFP, ESFJ, E/INFP, INFP, ENFJ, INFP. Did you notice that I didn't turn out an INFJ on any of those eight tests? Is it possible that our letters just aren't static? It seems that our personalities grown and change within a certain framework of letters. It's worth investigating.

Modern Mrs. Darcy is a kindred spirit. She's been writing a lot about personality too. She loves the MBTI, but she introduced me to another book that's now a must read.

Honestly, at first, I thought this title had something to do with ancient codes, conspiracy theories, or maybe a cult, but since I trust Modern Mrs Darcy so much, I knew I was wrong. (It's possible that the word enneagram made me think of the word pentagram which of course makes me think of dark things.) It just sounded weird, but after looking into it, I think this book will help me further down my rabbit hole of personality research. It's fascinating stuff and I always gets excited to learn something new.

Where will the Sorting Hat put you?

Thinking Happy

 I don't know why I can't seem to get a post here on my blog these days. I've been working on this one for days, but each time I log out without publishing. I don't think it has to do with this particular post or anything.

 Anyway, I just finished reading Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin and honestly, I can't stop thinking about it. I read her first book, The Happiness Project a couple of years ago, but largely, I didn't implement much to my life. I know why.  I read this book while deep in the trenches of life with the twins. I wasn't exactly unhappy, but I was/am struggling with to find some sort of balance for our family. I was failing miserably and I didn't think I had time to ponder increasing my happiness. How wrong I was. I continued to be frustrated.

I didn't get the impression that Rubin was unhappy herself, but I believe it took some deep introspection to determine that she could be happier and that her habits could be contributing to what I'll call sub-par happiness. This so-called sub-par happiness is what really got me thinking deeper about happiness and how to achieve it. Happiness is work, but it can/should be happy work. Her journey to happiness, in essence, is a journey of knowing one's self.

Throughout her first book, she identified a set of personal commandments that would be more like principles to live by. Her first commandment is simply: Be Gretchen. The first time I read "Be Gretchen" I suppose I thought it too broad to really mean anything. Be Gretchen? What's that supposed to mean? This is the tricky part. I only really understood it once I read her second book. Be Carmen. Be Carmen? Don't I already know who I am? Yes and no. When I started to think about this, I thought about all the things I think I should like or be interested in, but just am not.  Like skiing. I live in Colorado. I should ski. Everybody loves skiing. I should love skiing. Right? No. I don't have any interest in skiing. Once I let go of the notion that I should like skiing, I was relieved. I am finally being Carmen. In addition to Rubin's 12 Personal Commandments, she also has a list of Eight Splendid Truths and  one of those truths is that "I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature". Why is it so challenging to be ourselves? Understanding who we really are in contrast to who we think we should be is at the crux of the whole thing.

I think a scene in The Runaway Bride illustrates this point very well. Richard Gere goes to the small town to interview all of the jilted grooms. Richard Gere asks each groom how Julia Roberts' character likes her eggs. They all answer the same way. She likes her eggs the same way they do. Richard Gere gets many different answers. Later on in the movie, she tries all the egg dishes- scrambled, poached, etc. to determine exactly how she likes them. It took work for her to determine something as simple figuring how she liked her eggs cooked.

Somewhere along the way of motherhood, I think I started to think, albeit unconsciously, that I didn't matter much. Motherhood involves sacrifice and somehow, I may have intuited that I wasn't nearly as important as my children. I wasn't some martyr or anything like that, I simply forgot to be me. I had to dig deep and get re-acquainted myself. I realized that there was nothing selfish with this idea of "being Carmen".

So, this time around while I ponder happiness, I realized that Gretchen Rubin had a couple of other things that truly made me sit up and pay attention. These things, I might add, were also an education into my own character. Rubin talks about the notion of "spending out". I don't think I have a miserly nature as Rubin thinks of herself, but I definitely saw myself in her description of "saving" things for some better day in the future. It makes no sense. For instance, I used to save all of my "good clothes" and wear all my worn junkie stuff. I couldn't stand the notion of wearing out my good stuff. This didn't just apply to my clothes. It was books. It was dishes. It was everything. I never wanted to crease book spines. In short, I wanted my stuff to stay, nice and perfect. When I was a kid, my sister used to say that my room looked like a museum. Simply, I didn't want to use my good stuff. Of course, by the time I decided that I could wear my "good clothes" they were mostly out of style and I wouldn't wear them anyway. "Spending out" has to do both with using the things we have and enjoying them. Once I relaxed and decided that my books didn't have to stay in pristine condition, I enjoyed my books much more. Once things stopped being off-limits, I started to take pleasure in having things. It's way less work to use them than to save them for some ambiguous day in the future that may not come. In the end, it's just stuff. I realized that this is a weird thing that most people wouldn't even understand, but I realized that this one thing was not contributing to my happiness. So, I started wearing all of my clothes, bending the covers on my books, and in general deciding to use something or give it to someone who would. Rubin has a chapter in The Happiness Project on just this thing. I've discovered those small things that hinder deeper happiness.

These seemingly little things are the big things. Happiness is work, but it should be happy work. Check out Rubin's website, The Happiness Project for more on happiness. There's something for you there. I promise.

Here are Rubin's Splendid Truths. They seem like common sense, but seeing these ideas all together and taken as a whole really gives a clearer picture.

First Splendid Truth

To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

Second Splendid Truth

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.

Third Splendid Truth

The days are long, but the years are short. (Click here to see my one-minute movie; of everything I’ve written about happiness, I think this video resonates most with people.)

Fourth Splendid Truth

You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.

[Many argue the opposite case. John Stuart Mill, for example, wrote, “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” I disagree.]

Fifth Splendid Truth

I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature.

Sixth Splendid Truth

The only person I can change is myself.

Seventh Splendid Truth

Happy people make people happy, but
I can’t make someone be happy, and
No one else can make me happy.

Eighth Splendid Truth

Now is now.

Happiness- 2010 Reading Goals Book #9

Yesterday, I plowed through the last 75 pages or so of Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. It was extremely overdue and I can't stand even the smallest library fine. I knew I was approaching almost $2 in fines. So, since I had a clingy baby with a high fever, I mostly sat on the couch and read.



When I first picked up Rubin's book back in December or January (I can't remember now), I was attracted to yet another "one-year" experiment book. I admit that I'm sucker for what Rubin termed (although she didn't coin the expression) "stunt journalism". I didn't even realize there was a term to describe these kinds of books. I had read lots of books wherein the authors challenge themselves on something for one year. I had read Give it Up! My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less and A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy (where the author complains for most of the book that her children will not appreciate little hand-carved wooden toys from Germany because they prefer flashy plastic) or Julie and Julia where Julie Powell cooks her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year (a book I just couldn't finish because I found the real Julie Powell just plain awful). I have not read Living Oprah: My One Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk (not interested in this title) or The Year of Living Biblically. You see the trend though.

I'm completely intrigued with the idea of a year-long challenge. So, that's why I read Gretchen Rubin's book. I consider myself a pretty happy person and I know I've stumbled onto some Rubin's findings on my own, but it's nice to read about someone else's journey of growth.


After listening to Dennis Prager's Happiness Hour for years, I was intrigued by Rubin's project. I had learned a lot about happiness over the years from Prager and had even read his book, Happiness is a Serious Problem. (I have to admit that I was a bit dismayed that his book didn't even show up in her bibliography. He's such an advocate for happiness.) He contends that we have an obligation to be happy and that happy people make a better world. Yup. It sounds so easy, but why do so many people find it so difficult to be happy? Is it because happiness, isn't always the easy path?

Rubin identified something she wanted to focus on each month for a year. One month she cleared the clutter from her home and that energized her (No surprise here for me. Less is more. It's my mantra!) and another she focused on going out of her comfort zone and challenging herself. She took an intense drawing class. She decided to write a novel in a months' time. (She discovered that happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.) Interesting! Happiness is sometimes is hard work. It isn't the easy path. Isn't that ironic? She found St Therese of Lisieux so fascinating that she bought seventeen books about her and studied her happiness and discovered it wasn't always easy, but she continued to choose happiness despite her situation. Simply, St Therese acted the way she wanted to feel.

Although slightly gimmicky, this book ultimately made me think more about happiness and hopefully by incorporating a few of things I hadn't really thought of before, I can boost not only my happiness, but the happiness of my family.

(By the way, my 2010 Reading Goals list is currently on my sidebar. I won't review every book I read, but happiness is an important topic and something we should consider every day.)