"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin
First read(listened to): 27.07.2010
So I don't agree with everything a 100% but mostly? WOW. It's such a smart, methodical approach to happiness!
Mostly I don't think not ever criticizing is a good idea, I think one should aim to limit oneself to constructive criticism (could totally work on this myself <.<), without any criticism, with unlimited positivism, how could there be any improvement? And other people improving is of concern to you because you have to live with their mistakes and lack of efficiency as much as they do.
Some random quotes:
♥ People teach what they need to learn.
♥ There are three types of fun: Challenging fun (a class), accommodating fun (going out with family), relaxing fun (tv). Long term the first two cause more happiness, but also require more energy.
♥ Negativity bias, we notice bad things more accutely than good things. There's also the fact that thinking about bad things makes us unhappy and does nothing to get rid of the bad feelings, women have a higher tendency to rumination and that's why they are more often victims of depression. Distraction can work as a perfect mood lift.
♥ "Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.Therefore 'imaginative literature' is either boring or immoral (or a mixture of both).
It only escapes from this alternative if in some way it passes over to the side of reality through the power of art -- and only genius can do that."
Simone Weil
♥ Skillful emotion. Which is to say, you don't just feel how you feel, you feel how you act and your behaviour, even if initially forced (laughing, politeness) can generate feelings you want to have.
♥ Fundamental attribution error: We then tend to explain behavior in terms of internal disposition, such as personality traits, abilities, motives, etc. as opposed to external situational factors. This can be due to our focus on the person more than their situation, about which we may know very little. We also know little about how they are interpreting the situation. So we assume people who act like assholes are assholes.
♥ Attachment includes the note and its objects.
♥ One is not always happy when one is good, but one is always good when one is happy - Oscar Wilde
♥ There’s no love, there’s only proofs of love. People are 47% to a family member who often expresses affection than to one that rarely does. Hugging relieves stress, creates closeness and even relieves pain.
♥ How people act, not what they said. (ie. Birthday celebration)
♥ Feeling right: feeling good or feeling bad in an atmosphere of growth.
♥ The sense of growing, of reaching for goals produces more happiness than actually achieving them long term, since the adaptative quality means that we get used to being happy in normal ways. Novelty and challenge are key source of happiness.
♥ People don’t notice your mistakes as much as you think.
♥ I can do anything I want but I can’t do everything I want.
♥ Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. C.S. Lewis
♥ FUN = Energizing, looking forward to it and not guilty.
2010, 2010: non-fiction book in english, book-2010, #non-fiction, *author: female, @read in english, +philosophy, #audiobook, #biography, [quotes], [quotes] books, [quotes] books/non-fiction, to re-read