Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

by Gretchen Rubin

  As the counterpart to giving Jamie more gold stars, I also tried to stop giving him black marks; I discovered, however, that I had an easier time saying nice things than biting back critical comments. I enjoyed saying “Thanks” or “What a great solution,” but found it hard to resist saying “Haven’t you done that yet?” or “You’re not being helpful” or “I can’t believe you’ve given the girls so much ice cream.” Worst of all, I continued to make that (supposedly terrifying) “mean face” that Jamie and the girls complained about. I wanted to cut back on these unpleasant exchanges because I knew that for a happy marriage, it’s more helpful to have fewer negative experiences than to have more positive experiences.

  Although it wasn’t always easy to give out gold stars, or to swallow criticisms, or to avoid making the mean face, neither I nor Jamie indulged in one very significant negative behavior: eye rolling. This common, seemingly unremarkable, gesture is highly noxious; it’s one of the clearest signs of problems in a relationship. Even when eye rolling is paired with smiles or laughter, it’s a sign of contempt, intended to make a partner feel unworthy, and signals trouble. My mean face, while quite mean, luckily does not include eye rolling.

  MAKE THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT

  I love Jamie passionately, but sometimes I fall into a spiral of criticism. He annoys me by not answering me when I speak to him, and that gets me thinking about how he also annoyed me by not mailing an important form, and so on.

  I discovered an excellent technique to combat this tendency. As a consequence of a psychological phenomenon that might be called “argumentative reasoning,” people are very skillful at arguing a particular case. When a person takes a position, he or she looks for evidence to support it and then stops, satisfied. This mental process gives the illusion that a position is objective and well justified. However—and this is the useful point—a person can often make the very opposite argument, just as easily. If I tell myself, “I’m a shy person,” I marshal examples of my shyness; if I tell myself, “I’m an outgoing person,” I remember times when I was outgoing. I’m able to argue both conclusions quite persuasively.

  To make use of this phenomenon, I resolved to “Make the positive argument,” and it proved quite effective.

  When I caught myself thinking, “Jamie isn’t very thoughtful,” and my mind started kicking up examples of thoughtlessness, I contradicted myself with, “Jamie is very thoughtful”—and sure enough, I was able to come up with many examples of his thoughtful behavior. “Jamie doesn’t enjoy celebrating holidays”; “Jamie does enjoy celebrating holidays.” I could actually feel my opinion shift. It was almost uncanny.

  This effect may help explain why happy people tend to live in happier atmospheres than do less happy people. If I make positive statements, I may help persuade myself and other people to take a positive view of things. If I make negative statements, I do the opposite. For example, if I say, “Wow, we got so much done around the apartment today,” Jamie and I are both prompted to think that we got a lot done.

  “Make the positive argument” also helped me combat my unconscious overclaiming. In “unconscious overclaiming,” we unconsciously overestimate our contributions or skills relative to other people. According to research, when wives and husbands estimated what percentage of housework each performed, the percentages added up to more than 120 percent. When I started muttering, “Jamie doesn’t help us get organized for trips,” I argued to myself, “Jamie does help us get organized for trips.” And I realized, he does.

  TAKE DRIVING LESSONS

  In every marriage, a couple splits some responsibilities and shares some responsibilities. To a great extent, the harmony of a marriage depends a great deal on whether a couple agrees that their arrangement works out fairly.

  In my marriage, there was a responsibility that I felt that I ought to share, but in fact, had relinquished entirely to Jamie—the responsibility of driving.

  Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been scared to drive. As a fifteen-year-old in Kansas City, I’d hated going for practice drives with my father (I’ll never forget the day he calmly talked me through my panic as I drove around the dreaded Meyer Circle for the first time). I postponed taking my driver’s test until I’d already been sixteen for a few months—a shocking delay for a Midwesterner. When I lived in Missouri and in Washington, D.C., I did drive every day, but I was a nervous driver. Once I moved to New York City, I practically quit driving altogether; in fact, easy public transportation is one of my favorite things about living here. In New York City, having a car is a real luxury, so we’re very lucky to have a car to drive, but I made Jamie do all the driving.

  My sister, Elizabeth, is the same way. She drove in Kansas City, but after she moved to New York City to go to college at Columbia, she mostly gave up driving. Even after she moved to Los Angeles, famous for its car culture, she cadged rides from her writing partner and from friends for three years before she started driving.

  I’m not a particularly fearful person. Flying doesn’t bother me. I don’t carry germ-fighting hand sanitizer in my bag. I don’t worry about child abduction. I took the subway right after September 11, without even thinking about it. But driving! Sometimes I’d justify my fears with statistics: It was far more realistic to be afraid of driving than to be afraid of terrorists. Making that factually sound argument, however, wasn’t a good way to rid myself of fear.

  I’d adjusted to my fear of driving, but I knew that it cramped my sense of freedom and possibility. For one family vacation, Jamie and I rented a little house in the country, and I worried about how I’d cope if something happened to Jamie while we were there. From time to time, I’d dream that one of the girls had been in an accident, but I couldn’t jump in the car to go to her—or I’d dreamed that Jamie and I were in some unfamiliar place, and he got sick, and I couldn’t take him to get help.

  And although my fear of driving was very personal, it felt like a weight on my marriage, because it loaded too much responsibility on Jamie. Anytime we had to go anywhere in a car, and even when he was feeling sleepy or needed to take a work call, he had to do all the driving. To his great credit, he never once complained about it; he never reproached me for feeling scared or not doing my share, and on the few occasions when I did drive, he was encouraging and reminded me that I was a perfectly good driver. Which I was.

  This fear of driving had persisted for years, but it wasn’t an urgent problem in no-car New York. I might never have dealt with it, if it hadn’t been for Sarah.

  Sarah is the sister of one of my close friends. Somehow, she’d heard about my fear of driving, and out of nowhere, she sent me a package. It was a copy of Amy Fine Collins’s memoir, The God of Driving, about how Collins overcame her fear of driving with the help of an instructor, Attila Gusso. Inside was a note:

  Gretchen:

  I thought you might find the enclosed memoir interesting. The story has been a key component of my own personal Happiness Project.

  To learn that a hyper-capable, self-reliant go-getter suffered from the same crippling fear of driving that has vexed me for years was a comfort. To then read how she fought to overcome it, despite numerous often embarrassing setbacks, was inspiring. When I saw that the very same driving teacher from the book had opened up a school around the corner, I knew it was kismet. It took months and I had many setbacks but I did reach the summit. I’ve spent the past two months intrepidly driving everywhere I can, navigating Southern highways, picking people up at the airport, etc. I am still giddy about my accomplishment. The pride and independence I feel is beyond anything I experienced finishing the marathon or even college.

  Looking forward to your Happiness Project updates.

  Best regards to your whole family!

  —Sarah

  I read the note, and after procrastinating a long time, I forced myself to start The God of Driving—only to quit halfway through. It made me too uncomfortable. I was so uncomfortable, in fact, that I never even wrote to thank Sarah fo
r the gift. It was extraordinarily rude, but I just couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge it.

  One of my favorite Zen sayings is “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” In this case, the teacher appeared well before the student was ready. In the end, though, it was the memory of Sarah’s description of feeling happy and free from fear that goaded me into action.

  When I’m reluctant to take a risk or face something uncomfortable, I ask myself the Five Fateful Questions that I’ve pulled together over the years to help me make difficult choices:

  What am I waiting for?

  What would I do if I weren’t scared?

  What steps would make things easier?

  What would I do if I had all the time and money in the world?

  If I were looking back at this decision, five years from now, what will I wish I’d done?

  Years ago, when I was considering the intimidating switch from law to writing, I thought, I’m moving to New York, the publishing capital of the country. I have friends who are agents and writers who can give me advice. I have an idea for a book that I’m dying to write, and in fact, I’ve already started writing it. I really want to be a writer. What am I waiting for? Nothing. I made the switch.

  With driving, I thought, I have a friend who told me about her terrific driving instructor. I have the flexibility in my schedule to take lessons, and I can afford them. The driving school is in my neighborhood. There’s no other major source of anxiety in my life right now. I really wish I weren’t scared to drive. What am I waiting for? Nothing. I dreaded the thought of taking driving lessons, but getting over this fear would give me more freedom and make me a stronger marriage partner. Happiness doesn’t always make me feel happy.

  As I reluctantly debated whether to add the resolution to “Take driving lessons” to my list, I realized that the Five Fateful Questions could be replaced with a single admonition: Choose the bigger life. Being willing to drive would enlarge my life. I wrote a note to Sarah:

  Hi Sarah!

  At long last, I’m ready to tackle my fear of driving. You were SO NICE to send me that book, so long ago, which I never acknowledged because of my own ridiculous inner psychic drama. “When the student is ready, the teacher appears” and you appeared about a year before I was ready.

  Thank you for the encouragement! Only the recollection of your example has kept this on my mind long enough to act. xxg

  Sarah immediately responded with information and some helpful suggestions. I took a deep breath—and made an appointment.

  “I’m going to take driving lessons,” I told Jamie after I’d set the first date. “I want to get over this fear of driving.”

  “Really? That’s terrific!” he said enthusiastically. “That’s a great idea. Your driving is fine, you know. You just need to get back in the swing of it.”

  Finally the appointed hour came. For days, I’d dreaded that first drive, but I also felt a sense of relief. At last, I was taking a step toward solving a problem that had nagged me for so long.

  I steeled myself for the first lesson. I organized my day so I wouldn’t feel harried or overtaxed; I triple-checked my backpack to make sure I had my driver’s license, my sunglasses, and a sweater. Would I drive, or would we just talk about driving? Maybe this would be an intro class with no actual driving. At the very least, I expected that the instructor would drive me to some relatively deserted corner of New York City before putting me behind the wheel.

  Nope. The minute I approached Attila’s double-braked car, he got out, introduced himself, shook my hand, and pointed me to the driver’s seat. After a review of mirror adjustment and some basic rules of the road, I found myself driving down Lexington Avenue. I had to drive and get acquainted with Attila at the same time, which practically overloaded my system.

  Attila turned out to be a pleasant man with a Turkish accent and an “I’ve seen it all” manner. Before too long, I found myself more at ease. “I guess you get two kinds of students,” I said. “Mostly people who don’t know how to drive, and some people who are scared to drive. I know how to drive, but I feel scared. That’s what I want to conquer.”

  “Yes,” Attila answered. “You have skills. You can drive, but I can teach you how to be a better, more aware driver. A confident driver. Next time, you’ll drive your own car, so you get more comfortable in it.” And the next week, I found myself driving up the West Side Highway in our car.

  Starting the lessons showed me that a big part of my problem was that every aspect of driving felt unfamiliar. I was scared of driving, true. But a lot of my uneasiness came from simple ignorance. Because I drove so rarely, I wasn’t used to our car—its size, how it handled, how to turn on the defroster. I didn’t know my way around the city—because I never drove, I never learned the route to the George Washington Bridge or Midtown Tunnel. I didn’t know how to use GPS. I wasn’t even sure how to open the gas tank! Was it on the right or left side of the car?

  In every area of my life, I dislike the feeling of uncertainty or unfamiliarity. I love mastery. All these unfamiliar little tasks related to driving, not onerous in themselves, exacerbated my feelings of ineptitude and anxiety.

  The driving lessons forced me to refamiliarize myself with the minutiae of driving. I didn’t understand any of the cryptic symbols on the car’s dashboard, so I forced myself to “Read the manual” (and, dismayed by the level of detail, decided I didn’t have to grasp every nuance of adjusting windshield wiper speed). I made Jamie show me how to punch an address into the GPS. I put gas in the tank. Much of this work I could’ve done on my own, without official lessons—but I wouldn’t have. I needed an outside push to help me make progress.

  Given the build-up from the book and from Sarah, I’d hoped that Attila would be an extraordinary figure, someone with uncanny powers. Why? Because if he had some kind of crazy charisma, or some magical technique, I’d be off the hook. He’d do the work, and I’d be transformed into an enthusiastic driver. But alas, no. He was a competent driving instructor, but I would have to conquer my fear of driving on my own.

  After several lessons, I did start to feel more comfortable, and I actually started to drive. I drove to a store in Harlem. I drove to Randall’s Island. I drove to Westchester. I was happy that I’d started driving, and I was happy to pull my weight in the driver’s seat alongside Jamie. But I still wasn’t a happy driver.

  Then one of my friends said something very helpful.

  “The thing is,” I told her with a sigh, “I do feel less scared. But I haven’t gotten rid of the dread of it. I hate to drive.”

  “Well, you might never like to drive,” she pointed out. “But that’s not the same as being afraid to drive.”

  This was a revelation. I’d expected that my driving lessons would help me to enjoy driving. After all, a lot of people love to drive. I wanted to love to drive. But maybe it wasn’t in my nature to love driving. Okay, fine. I didn’t have to love driving; I just had to be able to do it. The driving didn’t make me happier, but successfully taking steps to conquer my fear made me very happy.

  As October drew to a close, Halloween scenes began to pop up in every shop window. Living in a city, I was cut off from many seasonal changes, but the cycles of stores’ holiday displays—commercial, true, but still beautiful in their way—gave me a sense of continuity. Eliza and Eleanor loved to exclaim over every storefront detail, and instead of hurrying them along, I entered into the spirit of the season myself. We spent twenty minutes in front of the display at the Tiny Doll House store.

  The approach of Halloween meant it was time to decorate our apartment, and I felt the familiar battle in my soul. Part of me wanted to simplify my life, eliminate work, and ignore our boxes of decorations. My mother had given me part of her collection of fabulous vintage papier-mâché jack-o’-lanterns, and I needed to bring them up from the basement storage, arrange our collection of Halloween photographs of the girls through the years, and, of course, buy and carve a pumpkin. It fel
t daunting. But while I felt the urge to do as little as possible, I knew I was happier when I took time for projects, when I made efforts that marked the seasons. And, as always, once the decorations were up, I enjoyed the festive air in our apartment.

  I was trying hard, with some success, to keep my October marriage resolutions, but I was discouraged by how often I broke them. Like one night when Eleanor, uncharacteristically, kept popping out of bed: “I need a drink,” “I fell out of bed,” “I had a sad thought.”

  I stayed patient the first time. And the second, and the third. Then I told Jamie that I had to do something in my office, so he should scoop her up if she emerged yet again.

  Several minutes later, just as I’d become immersed in my work, I jumped when I heard my office door creak open behind me. “I can’t fall asleeeeeeep!” Eleanor wailed. I patiently tucked her in, which required a great deal of self-mastery—then stomped into the bedroom to confront Jamie.

  “Thanks a lot!” I said, in a voice edged with sarcasm. “You said you were going to deal with Eno. I just had to put her back to bed. I have a bunch of work I need to get done tonight, and it’s already nine-thirty!” I stomped out before letting him say a word.

  When I got back to my computer, I fumed as I stared at the screen. I was mad at Jamie, and mad at myself. Had I been tender as I made my point? No. Had I been lighthearted? No. Well, I told myself, at least I hadn’t rolled my eyes.