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Sometimes complete strangers say things that can change your whole life. That is not what this post is about, though. This post is about something that happened to me several years ago on a flight from Newark to Chicago, where I was sitting next to an older Asian man who, out of nowhere, turned to me and asked, “Do you want to know the secret to being happy?” As I happened to be wondering exactly that thing at exactly that moment, I said yes, I would indeed like to know the secret to being happy. I can still see him, silhouetted by that white above-the-clouds light that comes through the windows on planes. He raised his index finger and said, “There are three things.” And that, my friends, is all she wrote. I don't remember what he told me. I FORGOT whatever it was he said.
Whenever I come back to this memory, and it’s fairly often because knowing the secret to being happy would come in very handy, I get sort of breathless and excited, remembering that man with his raised finger in the white sunlight, sensing the promise of something incredibly valuable—the secret to being happy!—and then it all comes back to me, like slamming into a mental brick wall, like a tiny psychic explosion—I FORGOT what he said. Then I have the same two thoughts: 1) I am SUCH a loser; and 2) if I were a really good writer like David Sedaris, I could write something so funny about this.
- David Sedaris and a monkey
But, as they say, it’s all material, all grist for the mill: someone once told me the secret to being happy and I forgot what it was. That’s what happened. This morning, on my way from the car to my office, I had my little PTSD recall of this moment, for whatever reason, and I started to tell myself a little story about why it was okay that someone once told me the secret to being happy and I FORGOT what it was. Like the way you would talk to a very slow-witted but generally well-intended person, someone you know is working really hard but not quite meeting your expectations. I thought, "Maybe there is a way to look for all of the small things in your life that teach you how to be happy, the real-life, less obvious lessons, since somehow, you managed to MISS OUT on the huge, in your face, sitting-right-next-to-you-for-three-straight-hours-and-available-for-follow-up-questions lesson."
Lots of small things came into my head, because really, it is not that hard to become aware of the everyday things that teach you the language of happiness if you just hone your ability to listen. And that was going well for a few minutes, until the whole thing started to feel sort of prosaic and gratitude list-ish, and generally not very interesting. But by that time I was at my desk and starting in on the work I get paid to do, so I stopped thinking about it.
Then my friend Ann called. We had a delightful conversation, as we typically do. She told me about a nightmarish work project that she has to do, about some of the cool stuff she's reading, and, as a side note, about how she and her husband have developed a theory that the sentiment, "Everyone has an interesting story to tell" might not actually be true, which is very funny. A little like the statement, "There are no dumb questions," which is so OBVIOUSLY not true, but funnier. Then she said, "I just have to tell you about one more quick thing before I go. The Happiness Project."
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, is a #1 New York Times best-selling book by Gretchen Rubin. It's a memoir of "the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier." The book and corresponding web site are a very structured approach to taking steps in your day-to-day life to do whatever it is that will make YOU happy (or happier).
On the surface, there several reasons for the cynical among us to dislike this concept on sight, and even the New York Times interview posted on Rubin's web site has an undercurrent of snarkiness running through it. But an idea that stands up for mindfulness, personal responsibility, and the general belief
