Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: 9 paradoxes of happiness to contemplate as you think about your happiness project.
As I’ve worked on my happiness project, I’ve been struck by the paradoxes I keep confronting. One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “The opposite of a great truth is also true” – and I’ve certainly found that to be true in the area of happiness.
I try to embrace these contradictions:
1. Accept myself, but expect more of myself. This tension is at the core of any happiness project.
2. Take myself less seriously—and take ...
Several months ago, my book group read a wonderful book, Terrence O'Donnell’s Garden of the Brave in War. Because the book’s introduction compared it to Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, I was prompted to re-read Out of Africa, which I hadn’t read in many years (a Secret of Adulthood: the best reading is re-reading). What a staggeringly good book -- and all about happiness, in an oblique way.
Since I re-read it, I’ve been haunted by Dinesen's beautiful, otherworldly description of a period when her household, on a coffee plantation in Kenya, was visited by a ...
For almost two years, one of my best friends and I have worked on an enormous project together.
How did it begin? A few years ago, after my children’s literature reading group read Peter Pan, I became very interested in J. M. Barrie, and I read Andrew Birkin’s terrific biography, J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys. Birkin gives a tantalizingly brief description of a book Barrie made using photographs of the four Llewelyn boys he adored. Barrie made one copy of The Boy Castaway of Black Lake Island for himself, and one copy for the Llewelyn family, but the boys’ father left ...
Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
-- Sir Walter Raleigh
* Have you started a happiness project yourself? -- either by testing one resolution or a bunch of resolutions? Share your experience here. By writing about what worked for you, you can inspire other people to give it a try.
Through a mutual friend, I became acquinted with Alexandra Levit and her writing – she’s a career columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Much of her work focuses on helping people find and succeed in meaningful jobs. Her brand-new book (we have the same pub date!) is New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career. It’s a great resource for anyone who is figuring out whether, what, and how to change careers.
A career shift is one of the most difficult, and also most rewarding, changes a person can make in a happiness project. Of course, these ...
