It was about the question of whether you’d prefer to work fewer hours over more days, or more hours over fewer days.

I’ve been thinking more about this distinction. First point: I’m re-naming these categories marathoners and sprinters.

A larger point: one reason that I’m a marathoner is that I really dislike deadlines. I really, really, really don’t like to have work hanging over me.

For instance, when I was in law school, I had two major writing requirements to fulfill by the end of my third year, and I completed them both by the end of my first year. ¹ I know I could never be a journalist, because I wouldn’t be able to take the deadlines.

Having a big deadline at the end of a very long period — as with a book — is fine, because it gives marathon-me plenty of time. I like to do a little work over a long period of time, with a lot of opportunity to reflect and research and refine, and ample margin in case some emergency prevents me from working.

However, I know that many people need deadlines to work. Sprinters, am I right in assuming that deadlines are important to your process? Is it too much of a stretch to call you deadline-dependent — that is, you won’t start your sprint until the deadline looms?

Also, it seems to me that there’s a difference between sprinters and procrastinators. Agree, disagree?

From my observation, sprinters deliberately wait for the pressure of a deadline to help clarify their thinking. For instance, a friend told me,

“I never prepare a talk until right before I have to give it–I mean, people are in their seats and I’m standing waiting to go out to a podium. It drives my staff crazy, but that’s when I get all my ideas.”

Another friend has a book to write, but she won’t start until a few months before it’s due. She likes to sprint, and she knows how long it will take her to write the book, so she doesn’t want to start until she’ll feel the deadline pressure.

This  approach seems different from procrastination. With procrastination, people feel as though they should be working, and they wish they could work, but somehow they can’t make themselves.  They aren’t choosing to hold back; they can’t force themselves forward until the deadline is so urgent that they must act. (Want tips to stop procrastinating? Look here<.) How do procrastinators feel about the marathoners and sprinters? Many procrastinators seem to wish they could be marathoners, but maybe that’s not a good fit for their natures.

I’ve just started to consider these distinctions, however.

What do you think? Marathoners, sprinters, procrastinators, or any combinations of the three, please weigh in.

1. Perhaps my eagerness to write big papers could have been perceived as a sign that I would rather be a writer than a lawyer, but that’s another story.

A thoughtful reader suggested that I might enjoy Little House in the Ozarks, a collection of the pieces that Wilder wrote for regional newspapers and magazines.

Heck yes! I got my hands on a copy right away.

I found much that interested me, and I was particularly struck by one paragraph.

“We are so overwhelmed with things these days that our lives are all, more or less, cluttered.

I believe it is this, rather than a shortness of time, that gives us that feeling of hurry and almost of helplessness. Everyone is hurrying and usually just a little late. Notice the faces of the people who rush past on the streets or on our country roads! They nearly all have  a strained, harassed look, and anyone you meet will tell you there is no time for anything anymore.”

Remember, she wrote this in 1924 when she lived on a farm in a rural part of the Ozarks in Missouri.

I think that we often assume that we feel rushed, hurried, and overwhelmed because of the internet, email, TV, and other newfangled contraptions. But here’s Wilder describing the same phenomenon. Maybe that rushed feeling is an aspect of the experience of “today” for many adults; while we assume that it’s the new gizmos (whether that’s locomotors, automobiles, telephones, or email) that make us feel that way, it’s really always ourselves.

Speaking of Happier at Home — a large part of that book describes me grappling with the challenge of slowing down time, and creating a sense of leisure and hurriedness.

Do you struggle with this? To develop a sense of unhurriedness, amid the pace of everyday life?

What’s more fun than a great temporary tattoo? If you love them as much as I do, check out my friend Tina Roth Eisenberg’s site Tattly. Amazing variety!

And I looked it up — so interesting!

Sometimes when we ask a question, we know that people might be reluctant to give a true opinion. Maybe they’re worried about angering someone else, or appearing unsophisticated, or admitting what they actually think or do.

Tyler Cowen made an observation that I think is absolutely fascinating, and one that provides one clever solution to this non-disclosure problem. Click through to read what it is.

He writes:

To get a person’s real opinion, ask what she thinks everyone else believes… If people truly hold a particular belief, they are more likely to think that others agree or have had similar experiences.

For instance, if a man has had more than thirty sexual partners, he will more likely think that such behavior is common. After all, his life is one ‘data point,’ and that data point presumably weighs heavily in his mind. Furthermore the man with more than thirty partners probably knows a higher percentage of other people with thirty partners or more. This will further encourage him to make a high estimate of how many partners other people have had…

[People] tend to assume that other people have had life histories at least somewhat similar to their own. When we talk about other people, we are often talking about ourselves, whether we know it ourselves.

So imagine that you’re considering sending your children to a particular school. Asking your friend, “What complaints do parents have about the school?” instead of asking, “How do you like the school?” might elicit a better answer.

Or maybe you’re considering going to a particular doctor. A person might not want personally to express criticism, but if you said, “How do most patients feel about that doctor’s office?” you might hear more.

This sounds surprising, but imagine how you would answer questions such as, “Do you think most people get along well with their in-laws?” “Do you think most people cheat on their taxes?” “Do you think most people love music?” “Do you think most people go to sleep after midnight?” Isn’t your inclination to respond with an answer that’s true for you? And yet the answer doesn’t feel like self-disclosure!

If this kind of thing interests you, you might also enjoy reading about why a mirror can make you behave better, and five more tips for boosting self-control.

What do you think?
Do you think most people would be interested in trying this strategy?

Are you interested in launching a group for people doing happiness projects together? These groups have sprung up all over the world, and one of my favorite things on my book tour was to meet some of the groups. Intrigued? Email me, and I’ll send you the “starter kit.” Read more here.

But it’s very hard to know ourselves. It’s easy to be distracted by the way we wish we were, or think we ought to be, or what others think we should be, until we lose sight of what is actually true. There’s a certain sadness to self-knowledge.

As Christopher Alexander observed:

It is hard, so terribly hard, to please yourself. Far from being the easy thing that it sounds like, it is almost the hardest thing in the world, because we are not always comfortable with that true self that lies deep within us.

Here is a list of questions meant to help you think about yourself, your daily habits, your nature, and your interests.

There are no right or wrong answers; they’re fodder for reflection.

If something is forbidden, do you want it less or more?

Is there an area of your life where you feel out of control? Especially in control?

If you unexpectedly had a completely free afternoon, what would you do with that time?

Are you comfortable or uncomfortable in a disorderly environment?

How much time do you spend looking for things you can’t find?

Are you motivated by competition?

Fill in the blank: “I really wish I could make consistent progress on my project to _______.”

Do you find it easier to do things for other people than to do things for yourself?

Whom do you envy? Why?

What do you lie about? For instance, a friend told me he’d been telling people that he walked to work, when in fact he almost never does.

What did you do for fun when you were ten years old? Do you still do that activity–or would you like to do it?

Do you work constantly? or think you should be working?

Do you embrace rules or flout rules?

Do you keep New Year’s resolutions?

Do you work well under pressure? Deadlines?

What would your perfect day look like?

How much TV do you watch in a week (and yes, this includes computer time spent watching videos, movies, YouTube)?

Are you a morning person or a night person?

What’s more satisfying to you: saving time or saving money?

Do you like to be in the spotlight?

Is your life “on hold” in any aspect? Until you finish your thesis, get married, lose weight, move?

What would you do if you had more energy?

If you suddenly had an extra room in your house, what would you do with it?

What people and activities energize you? Make you feel depleted? For instance, as an under-buyer, I very much dislike shopping.

Is it hard for you to get rid of things that you no longer need or want?

On a typical night, what time do you go to bed? How many hours of sleep do you get?

If at the end of the year, you had accomplished one thing, what is the one accomplishment that would make the biggest difference to your happiness?

Is there an activity that you love to do–yet somehow never seem actually to do it?

The process of answering these questions is meant to help spur ideas for possible change. I often find that once I start paying attention to an area of my life, it becomes natural and easy to make helpful alterations in my everyday habits.

Here’s a final question for you: What questions would you add to this list, to help other people know themselves better? It’s so important, and so elusive.

For instance, Why is it so hard to make myself go to bed? and “How can we stick to our resolutions?

I realize now that a big challenge for me is simply finding clarity.

Often, if there’s something that I want to do, but somehow can’t get myself to do, it’s because I don’t have clarity. This lack of clarity often arises from a feeling of ambivalence — I want to do something, but I don’t want to do it; or I want one thing, but I also want something else that conflicts with it.

Here’s a conflict: It’s nice when my older daughter is around while she does her homework; on the other hand, it’s good for her to be in her room without the distractions of family noise. So do I nudge her to go to her room, or do I let her stay in the kitchen? I can never decide.

These days, when I’m trying to get myself to pursue some course of action, I work hard to make sure I know exactly what I expect from myself, and why, and what value I’m choosing to serve.

I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles with this problem. Lack of clarity, and the paralysis that ensues, seems to be common. Here’s a list of aims in conflict that I’ve heard. Do any ring a bell for you?

I want to eat healthfully. It’s wrong to waste any food.

I want to give 110% to work. I want to give 110% to my family.

I want to work on my novel. I want to exercise.

I want to get more sleep. I want some time each day to talk to my sweetheart, watch TV, and goof around.

I want to spend less time in the car. I want my children to participate in many after-school activities.

Making money is not important. Making money is important.

I want to be very accessible to other people. I want time alone to think and work.

I want to be a polite guest. I want to avoid sugar.

I want to be frugal. I want to join a gym.

I want leisure time when I come home from work. I want to live in a house that’s clean and well-run.

I want to meet new people and see my friends. I want more solitude.

I want to stop nagging you. I want you to help me.

Have you experienced this–a paralysis that comes from conflicting values?

Check out this 1-minute video about 10 ways to be happier at home. One tip proved controversial; I almost tweaked it but then decided to leave it. Can you guess which one? Of course, the book Happier at Home is more thoughtful — but it was fun to come up with a list of ten.

If you make a person feel smart and insightful, that person will more likely enjoy your company. The point is not to be manipulative, but to help other people feel good about their contributions to a conversation.

So here are some suggestions to make that happen.

1. Take notes.

I’m a compulsive note-taker, and I used to feel self-conscious about pulling out my little notebook and taking notes during a casual conversation. Then I noticed that people really seemed to enjoy it; the fact that I was taking notes made their remarks seem particularly insightful or valuable. Now I don’t hold myself back.

2. Refer to a comment that the person made earlier in the conversation.

“This ties to your earlier point about…” This reference shows a person that you’re tracking and remembering their comments very closely. And give people credit for their ideas! The terrific Ramit Sethi gave me the idea for this post.  Relatedly…

3. If a person doesn’t finish a thought, ask him or her to pick it up again.

“You said there were two reasons, but we didn’t get to the second reason.”

4. Use the person’s name — judiciously.

Perhaps it’s the influence of How To Win Friends and Influence People, but some folks seem to think that throwing names around is always a winning move. I think it’s much more complicated than that. Sometimes, when someone uses my name, I feel as though I’m being manipulated, or chided, or patronized. But in the right context, it can add a very nice note.

5. As people talk about things they’ve done, take note of evidence of their admirable qualities — just in a word or two.

“That must have taken a lot of research.” “You showed a lot of initiative in starting that.” When someone mentions a fact from the past, my father-in-law often remarks, “You’ve got a good memory.” It’s surprisingly gratifying.

6. Ask for advice.

We all love to give advice, and feel smart when someone seeks our counsel. Even better…

7. Take someone’s advice!

If you read a book that someone recommends, use a software program that someone suggests, or try a restaurant that someone loves, that person will feel brilliant. In conversation, I’m always making recommendations such as Inform Fitness gym, where I go for strength-training, and Gary Taubes’s book Why We Get Fat, and I feel enormously pleased when someone follows my suggestions.

What have I left out?
What are some other ways to make people feel smart and insightful?

Wow! I love quotations and send out my daily Moment of Happiness email, with a happiness quotation (you can sign up here). So I was thrilled to hear from several people that the Real Simple Daily Thought for today was a quotation from…me! I feel so fabulous. My quotation was: “You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you like to do.” That’s right, I wrote that.

Readers made many thought-provoking comments. One reader pointed to research that suggests that talking about a goal can lead to the false feeling of already having achieved that goal. I’ve seen that research — and I’ve also seen research suggesting that talking about a goal can help you stick to that goal, by making you feel more committed, and also more accountable to the people you’ve told. So it seems to go both ways.

From my own experience — a statistically insignificant yet often helpful data point — this is a point on which people differ. Some do better if they don’t talk it up too much; some do better if they tell others what they want to do.

Exhibit A is my former roommate, who told people that she did yoga, and telling them seemed to convince her that she did, in fact, do yoga. Perhaps discussing it undermined her determination actually to do it.

Exhibit B is my friend who is trying to drink less, who says it’s very helpful to her to announce, “I’m cutting back on my drinking, so I’m only having one glass of wine tonight.” For her, telling people adds an important layer of external accountability.

So I’m curious: in your personal experience: Does announcing a resolution make you more likely to keep it, or less likely — or neither?

I don’t think it matters much to me whether I announce it or not.¹  How about you?

I had a great time doing this interview with Eric Barker, for his site Barking Up the Wrong Tree. We covered a lot of happiness territory.

1. I suspect that’s a result of my Upholder nature.

I was reading a description of someone, and it said, “He lives with his wife and children on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.” As I read this line, I had a fleeting yet complete vision of what that life would be like–the life of a person living with his family on the Upper East Side.

But in the next moment, I realized, “Wait, that’s my life, I live in that neighborhood myself, with my family!”

Yet the reality of my experience doesn’t at all match my vision of what that “life” would be like. And oddly, my imaginary version seems richer and more real, in a way, than my actual experience.

I realized I can provoke this feeling, just by putting my own experience into words.

If I think, “She went to an all-girl school in the Midwest,” I have an idea of what that was like — but I did go to an all-girl school in the Midwest, and it was very different from what my imagination kicks up.

Maybe “parallax feeling” is a term to describe this.

Have you ever experienced this feeling? It’s hard to describe.

Do you love great quotes? Sign up here for the “Moment of Happiness,” and you’ll get a happiness quote by email every morning.

In the United States alone, people spend more than four hours a day watching TV.

Watching great television can be an enormous source of pleasure. Channel surfing, however, becomes a default activity that doesn’t add a lot to our happiness — yet we persist in watching.

So how does TV fit into happiness?

To answer that question, I had to break “fun” into three types…

Challenging fun is the most rewarding, and the most demanding.

Learning to play golf is challenging fun. First you have to learn the equipment, the rules, the vocabulary, the motions. You’re frustrated. You have to do some errands. It takes a lot of time to get any kind of mastery. But slowly it becomes more fun. You’re outside, you’re with friends, you’re gaining mastery, you’re visiting new places—that’s fun! Challenging fun takes patience, time, energy, perseverance, and a long time horizon.

Usually less challenging, but still requiring a fair bit of effort, is accommodating fun.

Going on a family trip to the zoo is accommodating fun. Going to a family Thanksgiving dinner, going to a firm outing, going to dinner and a movie with friends, all require accommodation. You’re strengthening relationships, you’re building memories, you’re having fun – but perhaps not as much fun as you’d have if you dictated the terms. Accommodating fun takes a lot of energy, organization, coordination with other people, and, well, accommodation.

Relaxing fun is practically effortless.

Relaxing fun is relaxing. It takes little energy. You don’t have to hone skills or take much action. There’s very little coordination with other people or preparation involved. Sitting by the pool, flipping through magazines, and watching TV are examples of relaxing fun.

Challenging fun and accommodating fun, over the long term, bring more happiness, because they’re sources of those elements that make people happiest: strong personal bonds, mastery, an atmosphere of growth. Relaxing fun tends to be passive — by design.

So Why Do We Watch So Much TV?

So if relaxing fun is the least fun kind of fun, why is watching TV so popular?

Because, while we get more out of challenging fun and accommodating fun, we also must put more into it. Many of the activities that bring the most happiness also require a lot of energy, time, and planning. But in the end, they bring more happiness.

To boost happiness, if most of your leisure time is dedicated to relaxing fun, try to incorporate some challenging or accommodating fun into the mix.

What kinds of challenging or accommodating fun activities do you make sure to include in your day?
Do you struggle to limit your time with TV (or any kind of screen)?

Join my happiness discussion on Facebook, where every day I pose questions meant to help you think about your own happiness–also, just fun.

In the context of life of a happy life, something like a crowded coat closet or an overflowing in-box seems trivial — and it is trivial — and yet I find that I get a disproportionate charge of energy and good cheer from clearing clutter. An orderly environment makes me feel more in control of my life, and if this is an illusion, it’s a helpful illusion.

Even people who thrive on a little chaos tend to have a limit, and enjoy orderliness to some degree.

However, there’s a group of people who seem oblivious to clutter. They don’t appear to see it at all.

Now, I’m not talking about people who can stand to see dirty dishes scattered around, because they know if they wait, a spouse will collect the dishes (perhaps complaining all the while; see these facts about shared work).

Very often, people in a couple or in a group have different levels of tolerance for clutter, and the ones with the least tolerance end up doing the most tidying, and the ones with more tolerance end up doing less. However, in most cases, the messier ones would eventually cave and do some clutter-clearing, too. They want to be in environments that are reasonably orderly (though others might disagree by what is “reasonable”).

But what about the people who don’t seem to register clutter, ever?

A friend told me, “My husband never notices anything. As an experiment, when we got back from a trip, I left a suitcase full of his dirty clothes right in front of the front door, so he’d have to step over it to get in the house. I wanted to see how long he’d put up with it. After a month, I called off the experiment and dealt with the suitcase myself.”

If this describes you — I’m curious… Does clutter simply not register, or does it just not bug you? Do you feel there’s any value in creating an orderly environment, even if disorder doesn’t particularly bother you? Or is it not worth the energy and time? Do you have trouble finding things, or do you know exactly where to find your belongings? Is this a source of conflict with other people, or do they accept this aspect of your nature?

If this describes someone you know — how do you deal with this aspect of their personality? Is it possible to cajole folks like this into being more orderly, or is it impossible, because they simply don’t see it? Is this a characteristic that changes as people get older, or not?

Also, I’m not talking about hoarding. Just about mess.

I’m not sure why these questions seem particularly pressing today! And yet I’ve been thinking about them all afternoon.

In a nutshell, under this scheme, people fall into one of four categories: Upholder, Questioner, Rebel, or Obliger, depending on how they respond to external rules and internal rules.

Upholders respond to both inner and outer rules; Questioners question all rules, but can follow rules they endorse (effectively making all rules into inner rules); Rebels resist all rules; Obligers respond to outer rules but not to inner rules. To read more, go here.

I’m still refining this idea, and I’d be very interested to hear people’s thoughts on my further analysis.

One important question is: what is the main desire or motivation driving the people in the four categories? Here’s what I currently believe. Does it ring true to you?

Upholders wake up and think, “What’s on the schedule and the to-do list for today?” They’re very motivated by execution, getting things accomplished. They really don’t like making mistakes, getting blamed,  or failing to follow through (including doing so to themselves).

Questioners wake up and think, “What needs to get done today?” They’re very motivated by seeing good reasons for a particular course of action. They really don’t like spending time and effort on activities they don’t agree with.

Rebels wake up and think, “What do I want to do today?” They’re very motivated by a sense of freedom, of self-determination. (I used to think that Rebels were energizing by flouting rules, but I now I suspect that that’s a by-product of their desire to determine their own course of action. Though they do seem to enjoy flouting rules.) They really don’t like being told what to do.

Obligers wake up and think, “What must I do today?” They’re very motivated by accountability. They really don’t like being reprimanded or letting others down.

Understanding this is important, because if you want to motivate yourself (or someone else) to do something, it’s key to know how a person will consider and act upon that request or order.

What do you think? Also, what should I call this category of personality typing? I haven’t been able to think of a good name. “The Four Categories of Rules Acceptance” isn’t very catchy.

Do you have a life list or bucket list? Check out Go Mighty to make it happen. One of my favorite goals: “Have a beehive.”

She’s right, it’s a fascinating look at storytelling, and it also includes some terrific exercises to foster creativity. This kind of playful thinking is fun. It’s fun to mess around with ideas, to have new thoughts, to come up with a great idea. It might even inspire you to write a screenplay or start a novel.

Blatant self-promotion: in The Happiness Project, I talk about my experience of writing a novel in a month, inspired by the book, No Plot? No Problem!, written by Chris Baty, also the founder of National Novel Writing Month. Yes, I wrote a novel as long as The Great Gatsby in 30 days.¹

Sometimes creativity exercises are a bit boring – what’s that tiresome exercise with the candle, the cup, the matches? – but these exercises by Snyder, meant to jump-start ideas for movies, are very amusing:

1. Funny _____

   Pick a drama, thriller, or horror film and turn it into a comedy.

2. Serious _____

   Likewise, pick a comedy and make it into a drama. Serious Animal House – Drama about cheating scandal at a small university ends in A Few Good Men-like showdown.

3. FBI out of water.

   This works for comedy or drama. Name five places that a FBI agent in the movies has never been sent to solve a crime. Example: Slob FI agent is sent undercover to a Provence Cooking School.

4. _____ School

   Works for both drama and comedy. Name five examples of an unusual type of school, camp, or classroom. Example: “Wife School.”

5. Versus!

   Drama or comedy. Name several pairs of people to be on opposite sides of a burning issue.

6. My ______ Is a Serial Killer

   Drama or comedy. Name an unusual person, animal, or thing that a paranoid can suspect of being a murderer.

It’s funny: seeing this exercise showed me how screenwriters got the ideas for several very famous movies!

Feeling creative helps boost happiness. While people often associate brooding melancholy as the spirit most appropriate to creative outpourings, research shows that people tend to be more creative when they’re feeling happy.

Do you have any exercises you use
to help spark your story-telling spirit?

1. Actually, I’ve written three very bad novels, all safely locked in a desk drawer.

So how have I never come across poet William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell before?

When I found it the other day, I couldn’t believe I’d never read it before. Several of the proverbs were familiar to me, from other reading, but I didn’t know their origin in his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Blake’s “Hell,” by the way, is not the traditional Hell. Instead, it’s a place of “unrepressed, somewhat Dionysian [frenzied or undisciplined] energy” (at least that’s what Wikipedia says).

These proverbs are thought-provoking; I don’t agree with all of them, or understand all of them, but I love reading them. I’ve put some of my favorites in bold.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plow.

Dip him in the river who loves water.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.

All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.

Bring out number, weight & measure in a year of dearth.

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.

A dead body, revenges not injuries.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Folly is the cloak of knavery.

Shame is Pride’s cloak.

~

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.

The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.

The fox condemns the trap, not himself.

Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.

Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.

What is now proved was once, only imagin’d.

The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit: watch the roots; the lion, the tiger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.

The cistern contains; the fountain overflows.

One thought, fills immensity.

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth.

The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

~

The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

He who has suffer’d you to impose on him knows you.

As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.

The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Expect poison from the standing water.

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!

The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse,  how he shall take his prey.

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

If others had not been foolish, we should be so.

The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil’d.

When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius, lift up thy head!

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

To create a little flower is the labor of ages.

Damn, braces: Bless relaxes.

The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.

Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!

Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!

~

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands &  feet Proportion.

As the air to a bird of the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.

The crow wished every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.

Exuberance is Beauty. [this is my very favorite; I've loved this aphorism for a long time]

If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement,  are roads of Genius.

Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

Where man is not nature is barren.

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.

Enough! or Too much!

Which are your favorites?
Or which do you find objectionable?

Volunteer as a Super-Fan, and from time to time, I’ll ask for your help — nothing too onerous, I promise. And sometimes I have fun things to offer, as well. Email me here.

One strategy particularly struck me. He suggested that if you’re feeling a negative emotion, you can work to reduce it simply by labeling it in one or two words.

Note, however, that thinking or talking at length about the emotional state tends to intensify it, while simply observing and labeling it helps to quell it.

I do this myself, instinctively. I find myself thinking, “I’m overwhelmed” or “I’m frazzled” or “I’m feeling defensive” — and it’s odd how calming it is. Just putting a label on a feeling helps me to master it.

For those who enjoy reading about what’s happening in their right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and elsewhere, Rock explains how brain function accounts for this phenomenon.

How about you?
Have you ever tried a strategy like this — and did it work?

Lots of great material on Positive Prescription — I especially enjoy the category Visual Prozac — “because looking at beautiful things increases happiness.” Indeed.

I got a big kick from seeing The Happiness Project make an appearance in Dan Zevin’s hilarious piece in the New York Times Sunday Review, on The Dow Jones Emotional Average.  “The Dow feels better about itself today after it stayed up all night reading ‘The Happiness Project.’”

One “little thing” that can be a source of unhappiness is boredom. Waiting in traffic. Waiting for the subway. Doing the dishes. Waiting in a doctor’s office. Listening to your thirteen-year-old talk through her different clothing options for the day.

Here are seven tips to re-frame the moment; even if you can’t escape a situation, by re-framing your emotions about it, you can transform it.

1. Put the word “meditation” after the activity that’s boring you.

(This is my invention.) If you’re impatient while waiting for the bus, tell yourself you’re doing “Bus waiting meditation.” If you’re standing in a slow line at the drugstore, you’re doing “Waiting in line meditation.” Just saying these words makes me feel very spiritual and high-minded and wise.

2. Dig in.

As they say, if you can’t get out of it, get into it. Diane Arbus wrote, “The Chinese have a theory that you pass through boredom into fascination and I think it’s true.”

If something is boring for two minutes, do it for four minutes. If it’s still boring, do it for eight minutes, then sixteen, and so on. Eventually you discover that it’s not boring at all. If part of my research isn’t interesting to me — like the Dardanelles campaign for Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill — I read a whole book about it, and then it becomes absorbing. The same principle holds when doing boring or irritating tasks, like doing laundry.

3. Take the perspective of a journalist or scientist

Really study what’s around you. What are people wearing, what do the interiors of buildings look like, what noises do you hear, what do the ads show? If you bring your analytical powers to bear, you can make almost anything interesting.  Paradoxically, I found that understanding the theory of why waiting in line makes me crazy made me much more tolerant of waiting in line.

4. Find an area of refuge.

Have a mental escape route planned. Think about something delightful or uplifting (not your to-do list!). Review photos of your kids on your phone (studies show that looking at photos of loved ones provides a big mood boost). Listen to an audiobook.

5. Look for a way to feel grateful.

It’s a lot better to be bored while waiting in a doctor’s office than to be in an agony of suspense about your test results. It’s more fun to sit around the breakfast table talking about clothes than to be away from home on a business trip. Maybe the other line at the drugstore is moving even more slowly. Etc.

6. Consider: “Am I the boring one?”

La Rochefoucauld observed, “We always get bored with those whom we bore.” I remind myself of this when I’m having a boring conversation with someone!

7. Always bring a book. (in physical or virtual form).

What strategies do you use
to combat boredom?

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