Happier at Home

by Gretchen Rubin

  To remind myself to feel grateful for everything I had, and for my dear ordinary life, I decided to “Follow a threshold ritual.” Each time I stood at the top of the steps, as I fumbled for my keys to turn off the alarm and unlock the two front doors of our building, I repeated, “How happy I am, how grateful I am, to be home.” Every time I crossed the threshold from the street into my building, I took a moment to reflect lovingly on my family.

  I love the United States, and I love New York City. I love my neighborhood, and I love my building. In fact, when I asked myself, “If I moved someplace else, where would I want to live?” I realized that I wouldn’t want to move even five blocks in any direction. I’m right where I want to be.

  Despite the usual problems with recurrent leaks, plugged toilets, and occasional appliance failures, my home feels safe, solid, and secure—a tremendous source of happiness. I could recall many famous accounts of mourning the loss of a home: Isak Dinesen losing her beloved coffee farm in Kenya because of financial troubles; the forced sale of Lubov Andreyevna’s house and orchard in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard; the slow, empty decay of the abandoned house in Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse; Vita Sackville-West’s sorrow at losing her family’s magnificent country house, Knole, under the laws of male primogeniture; the terrible fire that destroyed Louis Comfort Tiffany’s masterpiece, Laurelton Hall; the murders and fire that destroyed Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, Taliesin, and the second fire that destroyed Taliesin II. One day, gladly or reluctantly, I would leave my apartment behind, and the anticipation of this departure made me love it more.

  Along with this threshold ritual, I looked for other ways to cultivate a thankful frame of mind—for instance, about money. Money, like health, affects happiness mostly in the negative: It’s easy to take it for granted unless you don’t have it, and then it can become a major source of unhappiness. We had enough money to feel safe, with our walls strong around us, and this feeling of security was one of the greatest luxuries that money could buy. To remember this major contributor to my daily happiness, every time I sat down for another session with my checkbook and a big stack of household bills, I thought, “How happy I am to be able to pay these bills,” instead of thinking, “What a drag to sit down to pay bills.”

  I had an opportunity for gratitude on March 16, the night before St. Patrick’s Day. I was exhausted, and I really didn’t feel like setting the table for a holiday breakfast—but I’d made the resolution to “Celebrate holiday breakfasts.” I admonished myself, “I’m so grateful to have two girls who are still young enough to be excited by a green breakfast!”

  Once the girls were in bed, I put out the green plates I’d bought. I scattered some green candy across the table, dyed a cup of milk green to put on Eliza’s cereal, and made a batch of green peanut butter (a peculiar and not very appetizing sight) for Eleanor’s toast.

  “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!” I sang out as the girls came into the kitchen the next morning. Jamie was out of town, so I took a photo of the girls smiling over their green food to email to him and the grandparents.

  Now, like most traditions, this effort was a bit of a pain. It involved errands and organization. I had to wait until the girls went to sleep to set the table, at a time when I felt like collapsing myself. But it didn’t take much to make a breakfast feel festive—and it certainly boosted my happiness and my appreciation for an ordinary day.

  In the tumult of daily life, it’s so hard really to see the everyday, to realize how precious it is, every time I cross the threshold. The sculptor Alberto Giacometti wrote, “Everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.” The more I think about happiness, the more I feel it.

  HAVE AN UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATION WITH MY PARENTS

  One of my favorite paradoxes of happiness: Happiness doesn’t always make me feel happy. Often, my happiness is best served by undertakings that make me feel anxious, uneasy, frustrated, or stupid. But as English essayist Joseph Addison observed, “The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.”

  For example, when Jamie and I had finally sat down to write our wills, we both felt uncomfortable—it’s not a fun exercise—but in the end, I felt happier knowing that we’d done it. Now I wanted to tackle a similar task with my parents.

  The next time we were all together, drinking coffee in the kitchen of my parents’ apartment, I gingerly introduced the subject. “Have you two ever filled out those forms for financial power of attorney, medical power of attorney, living wills—whatever they’re called in Missouri? Maybe it would be a good idea to do all that.”

  “I think we did it, didn’t we?” my mother asked my father. “But it’s been several years. Maybe ten years.”

  “Yes,” my father answered, looking thoughtful. “We did something.”

  “But where are the forms?” my mother asked my father. “At your office?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well,” I suggested, “if it’s been a while, maybe you should check.”

  In the meantime, I did some research. Because different states have different terminology and requirements, the forms are confusing, but the website www.compassionandchoices.org, under the heading “Care” and “Advance Directives/Living Wills,” provided every state’s documents for advance directives for health care. I poked around a bit more on the subject of financial powers of attorney, then emailed my parents:

  Hey—remember we talked about those health forms, etc.? Did you find out if you already did them?

  For Missouri, you probably want the “Missouri Declaration” (like a living will) and the “Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care.” Declaration requires you to sign with 2 witnesses, and the power of attorney has to be notarized.

  Also, you may want the “Durable Financial Power of Attorney,” which, if I recall, you thought you had NOT done before. Not sure what’s needed there for witnesses, etc.

  Not exciting stuff, and what a pain to get notary and witnesses, but good to get this done!!

  Thinking along these lines prompted me to send my mother another email:

  It occurs to me that it would be handy to have a list of what medicines you and Dad take, and your doctors’ names and numbers—just to have it all in one place. I’m making a list for Jamie and me. If you make one, would you send me a copy?

  It didn’t make me happy to have these conversations, but it didn’t make me unhappy. When Jamie and I wrote our wills, I’d been consoled by the irrational yet cheering illusion that these were imaginary documents that would never actually matter. Similarly, with my parents, it was easier to have this conversation when it seemed purely abstract. Also, my mother and father were game to talk about these issues; some people refuse to broach any conversation related to illness, incapacity, or death, and the fact that we could readily talk about these topics made the conversations much less stressful. We also had it easy because we shared the same values, and we all got along well. These kinds of discussions are more difficult when family members have very different viewpoints, or when there is a history of strife.

  However, although my parents were willing to discuss these topics, actually getting the forms completed would be tiresome, so I appointed myself the family noodge. In the long term, completing this process would make all of us happier.

  I wondered if I should also be noodging my in-laws. I raised the issue with Jamie one night while we were reading in bed. “Put down your book for a second,” I said, giving him a knock. Jamie put down his book. “I talked to my parents about durable powers of attorney, advance directives, that sort of thing. Should we talk to your parents about it?”

  “No,” he said without hesitation.

  “Should I talk to them about it? I will if you want.”

  “Definitely not.”

  I let the matter drop;
Jamie was the final judge of how to deal with his parents.

  Thinking about unpleasant conversations with my parents reminded me of the importance of pleasant conversations with my family. I dislike talking on the phone, so it’s always an effort to make a call, but the more often I speak with my family, the happier I feel. I should call, and email, and visit, and send photos—with my parents, my in-laws, my sister, and even Jamie. It isn’t enough to love; I must prove it.

  PLAN A NICE LITTLE SURPRISE

  I’d been intrigued by studies showing that we react more strongly to an unexpected pleasure than to an expected one. The brain gets a bigger thrill when some little treat comes as a surprise, whether it’s a dollar found in the street, a free cookie sample, a gift for no reason, or an unexpected compliment from a boss. And not only do we feel happier, but these little boosts of happiness also make us temporarily smarter, friendlier, and more productive.

  I loved a surprise treat. Every once in a while, Jamie brings home my favorite lentil soup, or even better, stops by the frozen yogurt store I love to bring home a container of Tasti D-Lite. I love Tasti D-Lite so much, and had been eating it so often, that I’d had to give it up entirely. However, though I abstained from buying it myself, I did eat it when Jamie bought it for me—a system that makes sense to an abstainer. Jamie also likes to surprise us with unexpected outings; recently he’d taken us for our first family dinner of Korean barbecue.

  I wanted to contribute to an atmosphere of thoughtfulness and delight. I resolved to “Plan a nice little surprise” for the members of my family.

  When Eliza was in nursery school, we lived near a bakery that sold tiny cupcakes. Every once in a while, I’d bring one home and announce, “We’re going to practice your birthday!” I’d turn out the lights, put a candle in the cupcake, light it, sing “Happy Birthday,” and let her blow it out. She was thrilled by her practice birthdays.

  I’d do it now, except that the beloved bakery is gone, and the bakeries near our apartment make cupcakes that are as big as a head of lettuce. I resolved to see if I could find a source for mini-cupcakes, and once I really started looking, I found a place near the girls’ school.

  “I have a surprise for dessert tonight,” I told them after dinner.

  “What?” Eliza asked.

  “Go into the other room for a minute.”

  I put a candle in each rainbow-sprinkled little cupcake, lit both, and turned off the light. “Come in,” I called. Then I started singing, “Happy un-birthday to you …”

  The girls were delighted.

  What else? Eleanor loved it when I surprised her with a new audiobook from the library. Jamie loved it when I did a deep tidy-up. I noticed a twelve-dollar necklace rack on sale, so I picked it up for Eliza, who loves to reorganize her jewelry.

  What nice little surprises could I plan for my parents and in-laws? I knew they loved any updates about the girls, so I made a bigger effort to report after a teacher’s conference or doctor’s appointment and to pass along particularly funny or sweet remarks, such as Eliza recently admitting that she’d always thought Stephen Sondheim’s name was “Stephen Songtime.” In particular, now that I was free from the oppression of my digital photos, I took more photos, and I made a point of emailing them to family members. When Eleanor struck poses in her new gymnastics leotard, or when Eliza modeled the chiton that the (lucky for me) arts-and-craftsy Judy had sewed for the Sixth Grade Greek Festival, I took a photo and emailed it to Jamie and the grandparents.

  One night, I heard a knock on my office door and turned to see Eleanor. “What are you doing up?” I asked with surprise. “You went to bed almost an hour ago!”

  “This is the most exciting night of my life!” Eleanor said, shaking with exhilaration. “My tooth is loose! I was in bed, and I was pressing on it, and all of a sudden, I felt it move. At first I wasn’t sure if it really was loose, but it is!”

  “Wow,” I answered. “Let me see!” She obediently wiggled her lower front tooth for me. “Let me take a picture for your grandparents.” I took the picture, emailed it, then tucked her back into bed, but thirty minutes later, she popped back into our bedroom to show off the tooth to Jamie and me.

  “Look, now it’s looser!” she exclaimed. “When I press on it, I get little jolts of hurting!”

  She was so excited that I said, “Do you want to call Grandma and Grandpa, and Bunny and Grandpa Jack, to tell them? You can, but you can only talk for a little while, and then you really have to go to sleep.”

  Although Eleanor rarely agrees to talk on the phone, she nodded eagerly. “I really wish I’d thought to videotape her,” I said to Jamie, as she chattered away. Her excitement, her high piping voice, that very first tooth; I wanted never to forget this.

  When Eleanor’s tooth did pop out a few days later, I sent the grandparents an email with the subject line “Tooth fairy!” with a photo of her, grinning into the camera and proudly pointing to the new gap in her teeth. My father emailed me back:

  FROM: Craft, John

  TO: Gretchen Rubin

  Yesterday I also had a tooth out … which required a lot more than a tooth fairy.

  As I planned these nice little surprises, it occurred to me that the opposite of a profound truth is also true, and anticipation, as well as surprise, is an important element of happiness. Jamie loves to cook, so I considered buying him a selection of Indian spices, then I decided—no. Jamie enjoys making trips to specialty grocery stores and picking out unusual ingredients himself, so I should think of a different little surprise for him. I ended up buying him a set of “Buckyballs,” the desk toy made of little magnetic balls that had been a fad among Eliza’s friends. Jamie incessantly fiddles with things when he works, so I bought him a set to play with—and he loved it.

  Yet again, I saw the effect of the resolution to “Act the way I want to feel.” By acting in a thoughtful, loving way, I boosted my feelings of tenderness toward my family. And that contributed more to the happiness of our home than anything else I could do.

  COLLABORATE WITH MY SISTER

  Although my sister, Elizabeth, is five years younger than I am, she has always had a powerful influence on me.

  For instance, she proved a person’s ability to make a radical change. In one night—I remember it vividly—she transformed her entire life. We were in our twenties, both in Kansas City for Christmas, and at that time, Elizabeth was living in a great apartment in Greenwich Village and writing and editing young-adult novels. On the night before Christmas Eve, Elizabeth went to a bar where she ran into an old friend, Sarah Fain. Sarah told her, “I’m moving to Los Angeles to write screenplays.” Over the first beer, Elizabeth promised, “I’ll come visit you for a few weeks,” and by the third beer, she said, “I’m moving to L.A., too.” On Christmas Eve morning, Elizabeth told us that she wanted to try TV writing and was seriously considering moving. By February 8, she’d made up her mind, packed up her New York apartment (with a lot of eleventh-hour help from my mother), moved to Los Angeles, settled in a little house in Ocean Park with Sarah, and was figuring out how to become a TV writer. That was a major happiness-project-style undertaking. When I was considering switching from law to writing, the fact that Elizabeth was a working writer helped me to envision making the jump myself.

  But while Elizabeth had always been a confidante and a model for me, and our relationship was one of the most important in my life, I didn’t see or talk to her as much as I would have liked. She and Adam had a new baby, the delightful Jack, and I had two children; we both worked full-time; we were separated by the three-hour time difference and the six-hour flight between New York City and Los Angeles.

  In particular, I’d always wanted to collaborate with Elizabeth on some project—but what? Although we were both writers, we were very different types of writers. She was a storyteller, a writer of TV scripts and novels (even after she’d made the switch to TV, she and Sarah had written two excellent young-adult novels) while I loved to do research a
nd write nonfiction.

  Still, I wished we could do something together. “Let’s get a radio show,” I told her, only half-joking. “Like the five Satellite Sisters. Or maybe we should do a video show on YouTube like the Vlogbrothers.”

  “I’d love that. What would we talk about?”

  “Oh, our own brilliant insights. I don’t know. Maybe we could talk about children’s literature, we both love that. Or let’s write something together.”

  I was always looking for ways to collaborate with other people. For instance, working with my friend to create the book Four to Llewelyn’s Edge had taken two years, a lot of planning, many eBay purchases, and a huge amount of work, and it had been thrilling. I wished Elizabeth and I could collaborate, but I couldn’t envision exactly what our project could be. Then, in an unexpected way, an opportunity arose.

  In December, I’d hosted the Second Annual Tri-Kidlit Party, the holiday party for the three children’s and young-adult literature reading groups to which I belonged. I loved each of these three groups, and I wanted to introduce all the members to one another.

  At the party, I saw Daniel Ehrenhaft, one of earliest kidlit members. I knew Dan through Elizabeth; they’d been friends in college and had worked together as writers. Dan still worked in YA publishing and had written several YA novels himself.

  I knew Dan was always looking for new ideas, and I cornered him at the party. “I have the greatest idea for a young-adult trilogy,” I told him. “I’m serious, this is genius.”

  “What?” asked Dan, laughing.