The Happiness Project

by Gretchen Rubin

  My understanding of fun is definitely not the same as other people’s. I enjoy solitary, quiet things. Even the sports I enjoy are quiet ones. Reading is fun, both books and blogs. Computer programming is fun. Diving and mountain climbing are fun. Yoga is fun. Shopping, on the other hand, which girls are supposed to enjoy, is definitely NOT fun. Parties are generally not fun either.

  * * *

  I tended to overrate the fun activities that I didn’t do and underrate my own inclinations. I felt like the things that other people enjoyed were more valuable, or more cultured…more, well, legitimate. But now it was time to “Be Gretchen.” I needed to acknowledge to myself what I enjoyed, not what I wished I enjoyed. If something was really fun for me, it would pass this test: I looked forward to it; I found it energizing, not draining; and I didn’t feel guilty about it later.

  I told a friend about my quest, and she said, “Gosh, if I had something fun I wanted to do, I’d feel frustrated, because I wouldn’t have time for it. I don’t want to add anything else to my plate.” This struck me as a bleak view—but it was something I might well have said myself in the past. My happiness project had shown me that I was better off saying “I have plenty of time to have fun!”

  But what, exactly, did I find fun? What did I want to do? I couldn’t think of much. Well, there was one thing: I really loved reading children’s literature. I’ve never quite figured out what I get from children’s literature that I don’t get from adult literature, but there’s something. The difference between novels for adults and novels for children isn’t merely a matter of cover design, bookstore placement, and the age of the protagonist. It’s a certain quality of atmosphere.

  Children’s literature often deals openly with the most transcendent themes, such as the battle between good and evil and the supreme power of love. These books don’t gloss over the horror and fascination of evil, but in the end, in even the most realistic novels, good triumphs. Novelists for adults don’t usually write that way; perhaps they fear being seen as sentimental or priggish or simplistic. Instead, they focus on guilt, hypocrisy, the perversion of good intentions, the cruel workings of fate, social criticism, the slipperiness of language, the inevitability of death, sexual passion, unjust accusation, and the like. These are grand literary themes. Yet I also find it enormously satisfying to see good prevail over evil, to see virtue vindicated and wrongdoing punished. I love didactic writing, whether by Tolstoy or Madeleine L’Engle.

  What’s more, in keeping with this good-versus-evil worldview, children’s literature often plunges a reader into a world of archetypes. Certain images have a queer power to excite the imagination, and children’s literature uses them with brilliant effect. Books such as Peter Pan, The Golden Compass, and The Blue Bird operate on a symbolic level and are penetrated with meanings that can’t be fully worked out. Adult novels do sometimes have this atmosphere, but it’s much rarer. I love to return to the world of stark good and evil, of talking animals and fulfilled prophecies.

  But my passionate interest in kidlit didn’t fit with my ideas of what I wished I were like; it wasn’t grown up enough. I wanted to be interested in serious literature, constitutional law, the economy, art, and other adult subjects. And I am interested in those topics, but I somehow felt embarrassed by my love of J. R. R. Tolkien, E. L. Konigsberg, and Elizabeth Enright. I repressed this side of my personality to such a degree that when one of the Harry Potter books came out, I didn’t buy it for several days. I’d fooled even myself into thinking that I didn’t care.

  If I was going to “Be serious about play,” I needed to embrace this suppressed passion and have more fun with it. But how? While I was trying to figure that out, I had lunch with an acquaintance who was a polished, intimidating, well-established literary agent. We were having a “we’d like to become friends but haven’t figured out how yet” kind of conversation when I mentioned how much I loved Stephen King’s The Stand. Now, I felt as though this was a bit of a risk, because I feared she might be the kind of person who would disdain Stephen King.

  “I love Stephen King, and I love The Stand,” she said. Then she added, “But it’s not as good as Harry Potter.”

  “Oh, do you like Harry Potter?”

  “I’m obsessed with Harry Potter.”

  Eureka, I’d found a kindred spirit. We talked about nothing but Harry Potter for the rest of lunch. As we talked, it occurred to me: I knew a third person who also loved children’s literature. Could we start a book group?

  “Let me float an idea by you,” I said tentatively as we were paying. “Do you think you might want to start a children’s literature reading group?”

  “A reading group, for reading children’s books? Like what?”

  “Whatever we want. The Giver, The Secret Garden, James and the Giant Peach, whatever. We could take turns meeting for dinner.”

  “Sure, that could be fun,” she said enthusiastically. Fortunately. If she’d said no, I’m not sure I would have asked anyone else. “I have a friend who might be interested in joining, too.”

  So I sent out a few e-mails and started asking around. Once I spoke up, I was startled to discover that I already knew and liked many people who shared my passion. Because I’d never mentioned my interest, I’d never known about theirs.

  For our first meeting, I sent around an e-mail inviting everyone to my apartment for dinner to discuss C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. At the end of the e-mail, I included a quotation from Lewis’s brilliant essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”:

  When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

  This apologia didn’t mean much to anyone else in the group, because they’d never tried to squash their interest in children’s literature. Why had I? No more.

  From our very first meeting, this group was a huge source of fun for me. I loved the people, I loved the books, I loved the discussions. I loved the fact that many of the people in the group didn’t have children, so there was no question about the fact that we were reading children’s literature for ourselves. I loved our kidlit tradition that the dinner’s host must serve some food that tied in with the book. This started when I served Turkish delight for dessert at the first meeting, because Turkish delight plays a significant role in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. At our next meeting, we drank Tokay, the wine that appears at a key moment in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass (I was surprised to discover that Tokay was real; I’d assumed it was part of Lyra’s world). For Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, we ate mock turtle soup and treacle tart; for Blue Balliett’s Chasing Vermeer, the blue M&M’s that are the signature candy eaten by Petra and Calder; for Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Meg’s blancmange, which Jo takes to Laurie the first time they meet. At the dinner to discuss Louis Sachar’s Holes, we ate Dunkin’ Donuts doughnut holes—for the pun.

  Studies show that each common interest between people boosts the chances of a lasting relationship and also brings about a 2 percent increase in life satisfaction. This group gave me a bunch of new friends and a lift in life satisfaction that felt much higher than 2 percent. Also, it was fun just being part of a new group. Group membership makes people feel closer and brings a significant boost in personal confidence and happiness.

  By contrast, around the same time, I was elected to the Council on Foreign Relations. Interesting subject, interesting group, and so very legitimate. Which group brought me more pleasure? Which helped me form new relationships? Kidlit. I’m passionate about Winston Churchill, I’m passionate about John Kennedy, but the truth is, I’m not passionate about foreign relations—so that group didn’t form as solid a basis for fun for me.

  So once again, one of my resolutions led me right back to my First Commandment: “Be Gretchen.” I had to know
and pursue what was truly fun for me. That was the road that led to happiness. But what else, beside the children’s literature reading group, could I do for fun? I was stumped. Was I so cheerless and dull that I couldn’t think of a single other thing?

  One thing that’s both good and bad about living in New York City is the sense that I could be doing so much—going to the ballet, going to an off-off-Broadway play, taking a graphic design class, shopping in Williamsburg, eating in Astoria. But I almost never do those things, so the possibilities are exciting, but also a reproach. I’ve been haunted for years by a public ser vice poster I saw just one time, in the subway. It was a photo of a Chinese food take-out container sitting on top of two videos. The caption read, “If this is how you spend your time, why are you living in New York?”

  Fun abounded in New York City, if only I had the largeness of spirit to tap into it.

  I told a friend that I was trying to have more fun, and instead of pointing me toward the “Goings On About Town” column in The New Yorker, she asked me a question: “What did you like to do when you were a child? What you enjoyed as a ten-year-old is probably something you’d enjoy now.”

  That was an intriguing idea. I remembered that Carl Jung, when he was thirty-eight years old, had decided to start playing with building blocks again, to tap into the enthusiasm he’d felt as an eleven-year-old. What had I done for fun as a child? No chess, no ice-skating, no painting. I worked on my “Blank Books.” For my tenth birthday, my uncle had given me a book that looked like an ordinary book but with blank pages, titled Blank Book. Now such books can be bought anywhere, but when I got this one, I’d never seen anything like it. Before long, I’d bought several more.

  I turned my Blank Books into commonplace books filled with clippings, memorabilia, notes from school friends, cartoons, lists, snatches of information that interested me. Jokes cut from my grandparents’ back copies of Reader’s Digest sometimes found their way in. A special series of my Blank Books were illustrated books of quotations. Every time I read a quotation I liked, I’d write it on a slip of paper, and when I saw a picture in a magazine that I liked, I’d cut it out, and I created my books by matching the quotations to the pictures.

  Keeping up with my Blank Books was the main leisure activity of my childhood. Every day after school, I sat on the floor sorting, cutting, matching, copying, and pasting while I watched TV.

  I set off to replicate this experience. I was eager to give it a try, plus I’d thought of another potential benefit: I’d noticed that many of the most creative people are inveterate keepers of scrapbooks, inspiration boards, or other magpie creations. Twyla Tharp, for example, dedicates a file box to every project she begins, and as she works on the dance, she fills the box with the material that inspired her. Having some kind of physical way of preserving information keeps good ideas vivid and creates unexpected juxtapositions.

  I bought a huge scrapbook and started looking for items to include. A motley assortment emerged: a portrait of Princess Diana made of tiny photographs of flowers; a review from The New York Review of Books about Books of Hours; a photograph of an artwork by Portia Munson called Pink Project (1994), made of a table covered by pink objects; a map of the counties of England, which I wished I’d had when I was writing my Churchill biography; one playing card from the pack I took from my grandparents’ house after they both died, decorated with a Thomas Kinkade–like picture of a water mill.

  Working on my new Blank Book made me look at magazines and newspapers in a different way. If something caught my attention, I’d think, “Why am I looking at this for a second time? Is it worth keeping for my Blank Book?” I was a less passive recipient of information. I also liked the process of cutting, placing, and pasting, so familiar from my childhood.

  All this thinking about fun made me realize that I had to make time for it. Too often, I’d give up fun in order to work. I often felt so overwhelmed by tasks that I’d think, “The most fun would be to cross some items off my to-do list. I’d feel so much better if I could get something accomplished.” I felt virtuous when I delayed gluing pictures into my scrapbook in order to deal with my e-mail.

  In fact, though, turning from one chore to another just made me feel trapped and drained. When I took the time to do something that was truly fun for me, to reread The Phantom Tollbooth for the fifteenth time, for instance, or to call my sister, I felt better able to tackle my to-do list. Fun is energizing.

  But I have to admit it—being Gretchen and accepting my true likes and dislikes bring me a kind of sadness. I will never visit a jazz club at midnight, hang out in artists’ studios, jet off to Paris for the weekend, or pack up to go fly-fishing on a spring dawn. I won’t be admired for my chic wardrobe or be appointed to a high government office. I’ll never stand in line to buy tickets to the Ring Cycle. I love fortune cookies and refuse to try foie gras.

  It makes me sad for two reasons. First, it makes me sad to realize my limitations. The world offers so much!—so much beauty, so much fun, and I am unable to appreciate most of it. But it also makes me sad because, in many ways, I wish I were different. One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you like to do.” I have a lot of notions about what I wish I liked to do, about the subjects and occupations that I wish interested me. But it doesn’t matter what I wish I were like. I am Gretchen.

  When I posted on my blog about the “sadness of a happiness project,” I was astounded by the response. I’d thought it unlikely that my sentiments would resonate with anyone else, but dozens of people commented.

  * * *

  This post really resonates with me. Because this is exactly what’s been on my mind lately.

  I’m currently going through a period of major change, and as always, they make you think.

  And I realize, I will never be an astronaut. I will never know what it’s like to be someone else, live a different life. Like you say, the world is so big, and I wonder if I’m missing out.

  I will never be an F-1 racer. I will never be a supermodel. I will never know what it’s like to fight in a war. To be a dancer on a cruise ship. To be a dealer in Las Vegas.

  Not because they are entirely impossible to achieve. But because I can’t dance (I tried). I can’t take G forces (I can’t even ride a roller coaster). I am not tall or pretty enough. I hate physics and maths, so I can’t be an astronaut.

  This is less about whether I CAN actually do any of those things, but more about whether I’d actually want to do them. Or to be dedicated enough to work towards them.

  I will never be that person.

  It has taken me decades to even accept that the hairstyles I like can’t be done with my actual hair.

  I don’t remember the exact date, but I remember the incident very clearly:

  One day—I was about 34 years old—it dawned on me: I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can’t DO EVERYTHING I want.

  Life-changing.

  I think most of us feel the same way. I’m a college student, majoring in English and trying to figure out what path to take. I’m an English major because I like to read. There are so many things I can do that involve books, but I’m undecided. I think almost daily I grieve for my limitations (I will probably never set foot in any club), but my passions give me such joy.

  I followed your lead and one of my commandments is to “Be Catherine.” I would rather spend the night reading a great book than dancing in a club, I love children’s books and check out dozens every time I go to the library. I think by knowing who we are as people and being ourselves, we can start making the world better.

  I remember when I turned 25, and realised I’d never be a Rhodes Scholar. The fact that I’d never wanted to be such, never applied or even looked into it, was beside the point. It was the closing of an option. I’m now looking down the barrel of not having the opportunity to have children. Always thought I’d think about it/decide what I wanted when I met my future husband. Still haven’t met him (if he
exists!) but time waits for no ovary.

  It’s part of being human, isn’t it? And more particularly so in the world we live in—we see so much of what other people do, have, are…But then there’s the majority of humanity who have SO MUCH LESS than us—we are the rich, privileged west. That usually sobers me up when I start comparing my material situation to that of others who have X Y or Z.

  I look at people ten years younger than me earning 6-figure incomes in corporate jobs and I think “I wish I wanted to do that,” but I’m an artist at heart and my path to financial security is a different one. I fought it for years and was insanely unhappy. Now I’m following the artistic path, am flat broke, worry about money nearly all the time, but am insanely happy (except when I get the moments of wishing I could make life easier for myself and follow the crowd).

  It’s so true…and I do think about those things sometimes, especially as I’m getting older. There are no “do overs” and some things just aren’t going to happen. It does make me a little sad sometimes. I just have to embrace what is.:)

  I relate to what you say here, more than I’d like to admit. I’d like to be this really cool, easygoing person who gets along with everyone, but that isn’t me—not really. I don’t feel comfortable in strange situations and I get more uptight about things than I like, and I make friends slowly. I WANT to be different and am pretty good at pretending, but it can be hard to deny that inside I am shy. In the same way, I’d like my husband to change, sometimes, and I have to remind myself that is unfair and unrealistic. Plus I love him, just the way he is.

  I actually lost a friendship because I couldn’t tell the difference between what I sometimes wished I was and what I was actually willing to become. I always had a touch of envy for those women who go out, in grand style, enjoying their cosmopolitans and discussing high fashion. I had a friend, however, who actually became that, and decided she was no longer interested in me because I didn’t become that person. I wonder to this day if I am partially to blame for that, as I probably led her to believe that I was willing to go in that direction.