Gretchen Rubin Quotes - Page 2

Money. It's a good servant but a bad master.

The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit.

One of the best ways to make yourself happy in the present is to recall happy times from the past. Photos are a great memory-prompt, and because we tend to take photos of happy occasions, they weight our memories to the good.

Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.

You really have to begin by figuring out what kind of person you are. The tip is to really take a look at yourself.

Happiness: "You Bring Your Own Weather To The Picnic."

In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find — and I hear from other people that they agree — that getting rid of clutter gives a disproportionate boost to happiness.

According to current research, in the determination of a person's level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts.

We are happy when we are growing.

Look for happiness under your own roof.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

... one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.

September is the other January.

Being taken for granted is an unpleasant but sincere form of praise. Ironically, the more reliable you are and the less you complain, the more likely you are to be taken for granted.

Act the way you WANT to feel.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lower the bar. Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement.

One reason that challenge brings happiness is that it allows you to expand your self - definition. You become larger. Suddenly you can do yoga or make homemade beer or speak a decent amount of Spanish. Research shows that the more elements make up your identity, the less threatening it is when any one element is threatened.

We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then - and this is the best part - we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, were free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower.

Pay close attention to any flame of enthusiasm.

Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens.

I always had the uncomfortable feeling that if I wasn't sitting in front of a computer typing, I was wasting my time - but I pushed myself to take a wider view of what was "productive." Time spent with my family and friends was never wasted.

When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.

The First Splendid Truth: To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

Think about what kind of person you are and shape your habits, and your happiness, to show what's true about you instead of thinking that you can just import the right answer from the outside.

What's fun for other people may not be fun for you- and vice versa.