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561. Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Bill Perkins

Genre:   Non Fiction, Personal Finance, Happiness, Self Improvement, Business, Psychology, Economics

240 pages, published July 28, 2020

Reading Format:   Book

Summary

The premise of Die with Zero is that too many people save all of their lives for their retirement and that by the time they retire they can’t enjoy their money.  Instead, author Bill Perkins advocates a different approach to spending where you can maximize your enjoyment of your money throughout your life.

Quotes 

“At the high end, retirees who had $500,000 or more right before retirement had spent down a median of only 11.8 percent of that money 20 years later or by the time they died. That’s more than 88 percent left over—which means that a person retiring at 65 with half a million dollars still has more than $440,000 left at age 85! At the lower end, retirees with less than $200,000 saved up for retirement spent a higher percentage (as you might expect, since they had less to spend overall)—but even this group’s median members had spent down only one-quarter of their assets 18 years after retirement.”

 

“You might think that as people get older, they spend money more freely out of the sheer desire to make the most of it before it’s truly too late. But the opposite tends to happen. In general, spending among American households declines as people age. For example, the Consumer Expenditure Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that in 2017, average annual spending for households headed by 55-to-64-year-olds was $65,000; average spending fell to $55,000 for those between 65 and 74; and spending fell again to $42,000 for those 75 and older. This overall decline occurred despite a rise in healthcare expenses, because most other expenses, such as clothing and entertainment, were much lower. The decline in spending over time was even more acute for retirees with more than $1 million in assets, according to separate research conducted by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which analyzed data from more than half a million of its customers.”

 

“The insurance companies that create annuities often make them seem like investments,” he wrote in a recent explainer about annuities. “But really they’re more like insurance.” Lieber went on: “Like insurance to stave off financial disaster, an annuity is something you purchase to guarantee that you won’t run out of money if you live a long time.” In fact, thinking of annuities as insurance makes them a lot more sensible than thinking of them as investments—because as investments they are not good at all. But that’s not their goal—their goal is to insure you against the risk of outliving your money.”

 

“It’s called consumption smoothing. Our incomes might vary from one month or one year to another, but that doesn’t mean our spending should reflect those variations—we would be better off if we evened out those variations. To do that, we need to basically transfer money from years of abundance into the leaner years. That’s one use of savings accounts. But in my case, I had been using my savings account totally backwards—I was taking money away from my starving younger self to give to my future wealthier self! No wonder Joe called me an idiot.”

 

 

My Take

Die with Zero met one of my basic criteria for a non-fiction book, e.g. it made me think about things in a new way.  My husband Scot and I retired in 2020 (after several years of tapering off) in our early and mid 50’s and have already adopted a lot of the ideas Perkins advocates.  We are spending a lot of money on travel to experience as much of the world as possible before we are too old and/or infirm to do so.  We also plan to use our money to help our kids while we are still alive and it will have the most benefit. We don’t plan to “die with zero,” but we do plan to maximize our enjoyment of life while we can.

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308. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Mark Manson

Genre:  Non Fiction, Self Improvement, Psychology, Happiness

224 pages, published September 13, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In this original take on a self-help guide, prolific blogger Mark Manson provides the reader with his take on how to truly become a better, happier person.  Manson eschews positivity and affirmations.  Manson argues that because humans are flawed and limited, we should get to know our limitations and accept them.  Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, and start confronting painful truths, then we can find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek and need to be happy.

Quotes 

“Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.”

 

“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.  Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible, but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you’re able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable.”

 

“Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.”

 

“Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another.”

 

“The act of choosing a value for yourself requires rejecting alternative values. If I choose to make my marriage the most important part of my life, that means I’m (probably) choosing not to make cocaine-fueled hooker orgies an important part of my life. If I’m choosing to judge myself based on my ability to have open and accepting friendships, that means I’m rejecting trashing my friends behind their backs. These are all healthy decisions, yet they require rejection at every turn. The point is this: we all must give a fuck about something, in order to value something. And to value something, we must reject what is not that something. To value X, we must reject non-X.”

 

“This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes.”

 

“You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice—well, then you’re going to get fucked.”

 

“But a true and accurate measurement of one’s self-worth is how people feel about the negative aspects of themselves.”

 

“The more something threatens your identity, the more you will avoid it.”

 

“It turns out that adversity and failure are actually useful and even necessary for developing strong-minded and successful adults.”

 

“There is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerges. This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances. We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond. Whether we consciously recognize it or not, we are always responsible for our experiences. It’s impossible not to be. Choosing to not consciously interpret events in our lives is still an interpretation of the events of our lives.”

 

“To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action.”

 

“We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive.”

 

“Unhealthy love is based on two people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other—in other words, they’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support.”

 

“Don’t just sit there. Do something. The answers will follow.”

 

“If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.”

 

“Travel is a fantastic self-development tool, because it extricates you from the values of your culture and shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function and not hate themselves. This exposure to different cultural values and metrics then forces you to reexamine what seems obvious in your own life and to consider that perhaps it’s not necessarily the best way to live.”

 

“Our crisis is no longer material; it’s existential, it’s spiritual. We have so much fucking stuff and so many opportunities that we don’t even know what to give a fuck about anymore.”

 

“Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others. The pain of honest confrontation is what generates the greatest trust and respect in your relationships. Suffering through your fears and anxieties is what allows you to build courage and perseverance.”

 

“Maturity is what happens when one learns to only give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy.”

 

“Everybody enjoys what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy, and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when they walk into the room. Everybody wants that. It’s easy to want that. A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, “What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?” Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.”

 

“Being wrong opens us up to the possibility of change. Being wrong brings the opportunity for growth.”

 

“The ticket to emotional health, like that to physical health, comes from eating your veggies—that is, accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as “Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things” and “The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay.” This vegetable course will taste bad at first. Very bad. You will avoid accepting it. But once ingested, your body will wake up feeling more potent and more alive. After all, that constant pressure to be something amazing, to be the next big thing, will be lifted off your back. The stress and anxiety of always feeling inadequate and constantly needing to prove yourself will dissipate. And the knowledge and acceptance of your own mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish, without judgment or lofty expectations.”

 

“People get addicted to feeling offended all the time because it gives them a high; being self-righteous and morally superior feels good.”

 

“I say don’t find yourself. I say never know who you are. Because that’s what keeps you striving and discovering. And it forces you to remain humble in your judgments and accepting of the differences in others.”

 

“Commitment gives you freedom because you’re no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous. Commitment gives you freedom because it hones your attention and focus, directing them toward what is most efficient at making you healthy and happy. Commitment makes decision-making easier and removes any fear of missing out; knowing that what you already have is good enough, why would you ever stress about chasing more, more, more again? Commitment allows you to focus intently on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would.”

 

“Yet, in a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life’s meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero.”

 

“If you think about a young child trying to learn to walk, that child will fall down and hurt itself hundreds of times. But at no point does that child ever stop and think, “Oh, I guess walking just isn’t for me. I’m not good at it.”

 

“Because here’s something that’s weird but true: we don’t actually know what a positive or negative experience is. Some of the most difficult and stressful moments of our lives also end up being the most formative and motivating. Some of the best and most gratifying experiences of our lives are also the most distracting and demotivating. Don’t trust your conception of positive/negative experiences. All that we know for certain is what hurts in the moment and what doesn’t. And that’s not worth much.”

 

“this is what’s so dangerous about a society that coddles itself more and more from the inevitable discomforts of life: we lose the benefits of experiencing healthy doses of pain, a loss that disconnects us from the reality of the world around us.”

 

“We are so materially well off, yet so psychologically tormented in so many low-level and shallow ways. People relinquish all responsibility, demanding that society cater to their feelings and sensibilities. People hold on to arbitrary certainties and try to enforce them on others, often violently, in the name of some made-up righteous cause. People, high on a sense of false superiority, fall into inaction and lethargy for fear of trying something worthwhile and failing at it.”

 

“Don’t hope for a life without problems,” the panda said. “There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.”

 

“My recommendation: don’t be special; don’t be unique. Redefine your metrics in mundane and broad ways. Choose to measure yourself not as a rising star or an undiscovered genius. Choose to measure yourself not as some horrible victim or dismal failure. Instead, measure yourself by more mundane identities: a student, a partner, a friend, a creator.

The narrower and rarer the identity you choose for yourself, the more everything will seem to threaten you. For that reason, define yourself in the simplest and most ordinary ways possible. This often means giving up some grandiose ideas about yourself: that you’re uniquely intelligent, or spectacularly talented, or intimidatingly attractive, or especially victimized in ways other people could never imagine. This means giving up your sense of entitlement and your belief that you’re somehow owed something by this world.”

 

“Decision-making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks. You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three-year-old kids. And dogs. You know what else three-year-olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet.”

My Take

While I never use the “f” word and not a big fan of its constant use in this book, I was still very impressed with many of the sentiments and ideas articulated by Mark Manson.  Like 12 Rules for Life:  An Antidote to Chaos and The Happiness Project, this book is chock full of excellent advice on how to live a better life.

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297. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Summer Youngs

Author:   Dalai Lama XIV, Desmond Tutu, Douglas Carlton Abrams

Genre:  Non Fiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Self Improvement, Theology, Happiness

354 pages, published October 18, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In The Book of Joy, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (both of whom are winners of the Nobel Prize,  spiritual masters, moral leaders, and are close friends), meet in Dharamsala for the Dalai Lama’s birthday and to discuss the concept of living a life of joy even in the face of adversity.  As narrated by Douglas Abrams, the book has three layers:  their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that underpin their own emotional and spiritual lives.  While both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been experienced significant adversity, they have found a way to use that struggle to be joyful and to spread joy to others.

Quotes 

“The three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing our happiness are our ability to reframe our situation more positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and generous.”

 

“The more time you spend thinking about yourself, the more suffering you will experience.”

 

“The Dead Sea in the Middle East receives fresh water, but it has no outlet, so it doesn’t pass the water out. It receives beautiful water from the rivers, and the water goes dank. I mean, it just goes bad. And that’s why it is the Dead Sea. It receives and does not give. In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.”

 

“Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.”

 

“Marriages, even the best ones—perhaps especially the best ones—are an ongoing process of spoken and unspoken forgiveness.”

 

“We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness there is a lot that we as individuals can do.”

 

“When you are grateful,’ Brother Steindl-Rast explained, ‘you are not fearful, and when you are not fearful, you are not violent. When you are grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not out of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people and respectful to all people. The grateful world is a world of joyful people. Grateful people are joyful people. A grateful world is a happy world.”

 

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

 

“I think that the scientists are right,” the Dalai Lama concluded. “People who are always laughing have a sense of abandon and ease. They are less likely to have a heart attack than those people who are really serious and who have difficulty connecting with other people. Those serious people are in real danger.”

 

“Much depends on your attitude. If you are filled with negative judgment and anger, then you will feel separate from other people. You will feel lonely. But if you have an open heart and are filled with trust and friendship, even if you are physically alone, even living a hermit’s life, you will never feel lonely.”

 

“We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. (…) The concept of Ubuntu says: A person is a person through other persons.”

 

“You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.”

 

“One of my practices comes from an ancient Indian teacher. He taught that when you experience some tragic situation, think about it. If there’s no way to overcome the tragedy, then there is no use worrying too much. So I practice that. (The Dalai Lama was referring to the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva, who wrote, “If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?”

 

“What the Dalai Lama and I are offering,” the Archbishop added, “is a way of handling your worries: thinking about others. You can think about others who are in a similar situation or perhaps even in a worse situation, but who have survived, even thrived. It does help quite a lot to see yourself as part of a greater whole.” Once again, the path of joy was connection and the path of sorrow was separation. When we see others as separate, they become a threat. When we see others as part of us, as connected, as interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face—together.”

 

“Joy is the reward, really, of seeking to give joy to others. When you show compassion, when you show caring, when you show love to others, do things for others, in a wonderful way you have a deep joy that you can get in no other way. You can’t buy it with money. You can be the richest person on Earth, but if you care only about yourself, I can bet my bottom dollar you will not be happy and joyful. But when you are caring, compassionate, more concerned about the welfare of others than about your own, wonderfully, wonderfully, you suddenly feel a warm glow in your heart, because you have, in fact, wiped the tears from the eyes of another.”

 

“If you are setting out to be joyful you are not going to end up being joyful. You’re going to find yourself turned in on yourself. It’s like a flower. You open, you blossom, really because of other people. And I think some suffering, maybe even intense suffering, is a necessary ingredient for life, certainly for developing compassion.”

 

“There are going to be frustrations in life. The question is not: How do I escape? It is: How can I use this as something positive?”

 

“Discovering more joy does not, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.” 

My Take

I really enjoyed The Book of Joy, especially its focus on gratitude and kindness as the cornerstones of a joyful life.  I completely agree with this sentiment.  In fact, I believe that you cannot be happy unless you are grateful and that envy is a killer of joy and happiness.  I also appreciated that both the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu emphasized that suffering is not the enemy of joy.  In fact, suffering allows us to gain compassion for others and, in the end, can increase our own joy.  A thought provoking book with lots of practical applications for increasing your own joy and happiness.

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241. The Blue Zones of Happiness: A Blueprint for a Better Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Dan Buettner

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Happiness, Self Improvement, Public Policy, Health

253 pages, published October 3, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary 

Having previously explored the Blue Zones of the world (those places around the world where people live the longest lives), author and researcher Dan Buettner turns his focus to the world’s happiest places (with in-depth analysis of particular types of happiness in three different locations, Costa Rica (joy and lightheartedness), Denmark (community and purpose) and Singapore (satisfaction and accomplishment) and provides a blue print for applying lessons from these countries to improve our own communities and our lives.

 

Quotes 

“I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it’s folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It’s important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don’t make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way.”

 

“knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy.”

 

“Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile – Kamada Nakasato, 102-y/o-female fr. Okinawa”

 

“Wine @ 5. People in all Blue Zones (even some Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. The trick is to drink one to two glasses per day with friends and/or with food. And no, you can’t save up all week and have 14 drinks on Saturday.”

 

“Drink without getting drunk

Love without suffering jealousy

Eat without overindulging

Never argue

And once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave”

 

“Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing.”

 

“In places where women have achieved gender equality, for instance, men tend to be happier than women. And in places where women are still not treated equally, women are often happier than men. Other studies have shown that, despite the popular belief that nobody wants to get older, most people actually get happier after a certain age.”

 

“WHAT CAN ADD ON MORE GOOD YEARS? Robert Kane: Rather than exercising for the sake of exercising, try to make changes to your lifestyle. Ride a bicycle instead of driving. Walk to the store instead of driving. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. Build that into your lifestyle. The chances are that you will sustain that behavior for a much longer time. And the name of the game here is sustaining. These things that we try—usually after some cataclysmic event has occurred, and we now want to ward off what seems to be the more perceptible threat of dying—don’t hold up over the long haul. We find all sorts of reasons not to do it. The second thing I’d tell you is don’t take up smoking. The biggest threat to improving our lifestyles has been cigarette smoking. That trumps everything else. Once you’re a nonsmoker, I would try to get you to learn to develop a moderate lifestyle in regard to your weight to build into your daily routine enough exercise to keep you going.”

 

“And as we shall see in forthcoming chapters, purpose and love are essential ingredients in all Blue Zone recipes for longevity.”

 

My Take

As a long time student of happiness, I was interested in reading this book.  It’s approach was to focus on three geographic locations known for high happiness levels:  Costa Rica, Denmark and Singapore.  The author discusses how joy, purpose, accomplishment and community are essential aspects of happiness and then shows how these qualities are present in those countries.  Interestingly, there is a chapter that explores the happiest place in the United States:  Boulder, Colorado.  I live in Boulder and agree that it is indeed a very happy place.  There is a tremendous sense of community here and lots of natural beauty and opportunities for outdoor activities.  A quick and engrossing read.

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240. 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

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Gretchen Rubin

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir, Happiness, Self Improvement

301 pages, published December 29, 2009

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The genesis of The Happiness Project was author Gretchen Rubin’s epiphany that she was happy with her life, but perhaps not as happy as she could be.  This led her to dedicate a year to her happiness project and, through research and experience, discover if there were things she could to make herself happier.  Every month, she covered a new topic including Order, Exercise and Sleep, Friendship, Children, Marriage, and Money to name a few.  Along the way, she developed her Twelve Personal Commandments, Four Splendid Truths and Secrets of Adulthood.  They are listed below.

 

Twelve Personal Commandments

 

Be Gretchen

Let it go

Act the way I want to feel

Do it now

Be polite and fair

Enjoy the process

Spend out

Identify the problem

Lighten up

Do what ought to be done

No calculation

There is only love

 

Four Splendid Truths

 

  1. To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right in an atmosphere of growth.
  2. One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
  3. The days are long, but the years are short.
  4. You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.

 

Secrets of Adulthood

 

  • The best reading is re-reading.
  • Outer order contributes to inner calm.
  • The opposite of a great truth is also true.
  • You manage what you measure.
  • By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished.
  • People don’t notice your mistakes and flaws as much as you think.
  • It’s nice to have plenty of money.
  • Most decisions don’t require extensive research.
  • Try not to let yourself get too hungry.
  • It’s important to have family rituals.
  • If you can’t find something, clean up.
  • Someplace, keep an empty shelf.
  • Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.
  • It’s okay to ask for help.
  • You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you LIKE to do.
  • Happiness doesn’t always make you feel happy.
  • What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.
  • You don’t have to be good at everything.
  • Soap and water removes most stains.
  • It’s important to be nice to EVERYONE.
  • You know as much as most people.
  • Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.
  • Eat better, eat less, exercise more.
  • What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you–and vice versa.
  • People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.
  • Houseplants and photo albums are a lot of trouble.
  • If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.
  • If we have habits that work for us, we’re much more likely to be happy, healthy, productive, and creative.
  • Save and spend wisely.
  • Stop procrastinating, make consistent progress.
  • Engage more deeply—with other people, with God, with yourself, with the world.
  • Doing a little work makes goofing off more fun.

 

Quotes 

“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.”

 

“I grasped two things: I wasn’t as happy as I could be, and my life wasn’t going to change unless I made it change.”

 

“I knew I wouldn’t discover happiness in a faraway place or in unusual circumstances; it was right here, right now— as in the haunting play “The Blue Bird,” where two children spend a year searching the world for the Blue Bird of Happiness, only to find it waiting for them when they finally return home.”

 

“Of course it’s not enough to sit around wanting to be happy; you must make the effort to take steps toward happiness by acting with more love, finding work you enjoy, and all the rest. But for me, asking myself whether I was happy had been a crucial step toward cultivating my happiness more wisely through my actions. Also, only through recognizing my happiness did I really appreciate it. Happiness depends partly on external circumstances, and it also depends on how you view those circumstances.

 

“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.”

 

“I had everything I could possibly want — yet I was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had.”

 

“As I turned the key and pushed open the front door, as I crossed the threshold, I thought how breathtaking, how fleeting, how precious was my ordinary day Now is now. Here is my treasure.”

 

“To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.”

 

“In fact, in what’s known as “rosy prospection,” anticipation of happiness is sometimes greater than the happiness actually experienced.”

 

“you have to do that kind of work for yourself. If you do it for other people, you end up wanting them to acknowledge it and to be grateful and to give you credit. If you do it for yourself, you don’t expect other people to react in a particular way.”

 

“I knew I wouldn’t discover happiness in a faraway place or in unusual circumstances; it was right here, right now— as in the haunting play “The Blue Bird,” where two children spend a year searching the world for the Blue Bird of Happiness, only to find it waiting for them when they finally return home.”

 

“Studies show that each common interest between people boosts the chances of a lasting relationship and also brings about a 2 percent increase in life satisfaction.”

 

“Happiness,” wrote Yeats, “is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.” Contemporary researchers make the same argument: that it isn’t goal attainment but the process of striving after goals-that is, growth-that brings happiness.”

 

“Enthusiasm is a form of social courage.”

 

“There is only love.”

 

“One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.”

 

“Happy people generally are more forgiving, helpful, and charitable, have better self-control, and are more tolerant of frustration than unhappy people, while unhappy people are more often withdrawn, defensive, antagonistic, and self-absorbed. Oscar Wilde observed, “One is not always happy when one is good; but one is always good when one is happy.”

 

“Both money and health contribute to happiness mostly in the negative; the lack of them brings much more unhappiness than possessing them brings happiness.”

 

“I realized that for my own part, I was much more likely to take risks, reach out to others, and expose myself to rejection and failure when I felt happy. When I felt unhappy, I felt defensive, touchy, and self-conscious.”

 

“Nothing,’ wrote Tolstoy, ‘can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”

 

“Keep it simple’ wasn’t always the right response. Many things that boosted my happiness also added complexity to my life. Having children. Learning to post videos to my website. Going to an out-of-town wedding. Applied too broadly, my impulse to ‘Keep it simple’ would impoverish me. ‘Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings,’ warned Samuel Johnson, ‘let us therefore by cautious how we strip her.”

 

“Laughter is more than just a pleasurable activity…When people laugh together, they tend to talk and touch more and to make eye contact more frequently.”

 

“The days are long, but the years are short.”

 

“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 spend with my family and friends was never wasted.”

 

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

 

“It’s about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world.”

 

“While some more passive forms of leisure, such as watching TV or surfing the Internet, are fun in the short term, over time, they don’t offer nearly the same happiness as more challenging activities.”

 

“It struck me as poignant that my long relationship with my beloved grandparents could be embodied in a few small objects. But the power of objects doesn’t depend on their volume; in fact, my memories were better evoked by a few carefully chosen items than by a big assortment of things with vague associations.”

 

“Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.”

 

“It’s easy to be heavy; hard to be light.”

 

“Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life—and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. We nonjoyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones; we rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety. At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we’re sometimes provoked to try to shake the enthusiastic, cheery folk out of their fog of illusion—to make them see that the play was stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it.”

 

“When we do stumble, it’s important not to judge ourselves harshly. Although some people assume that strong feelings of guilt or shame act as safeguards to help people stick to good habits, the opposite is true. People who feel less guilt and who show compassion toward themselves in the face of failure are better able to regain self-control, while people who feel deeply guilty and full of self-blame struggle more.”

 

“Although we presume that we act because of the way we feel, in fact we often feel because of the way we act.”

 

“The pleasure of doing the same thing, in the same way, every day, shouldn’t be overlooked. The things I do every day take on a certain beauty and provide a kind of invisible architecture to my life.”

 

“With habits, we don’t make decisions, we don’t use self-control, we just do the thing we want ourselves to do—or that we don’t want to do.”

 

“Did I have a heart to be contented? Well, no, not particularly. I had a tendency to be discontented: ambitious, dissatisfied, fretful, and tough to please…It’s easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.”

 

“Never start a sentence with the words ‘No offense.”

 

“When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure – but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure.”

 

“I enjoy the fun of failure. It’s fun to fail, I kept repeating. It’s part of being ambitious; it’s part of being creative. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.”

 

“Look for happiness under your own roof.”

 

“Studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn’t relieve anger but amplifies it. On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.”

 

“The things that go wrong often make the best memories.”

 

“It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously — and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.”

 

“From my observation, habits in four areas do most to boost feelings of self-control, and in this way strengthen the Foundation of all our habits. We do well to begin by tackling the habits that help us to: 1. sleep 2. move 3. eat and drink right 4. Unclutter. ”

 

“Enthusiasm is more important than innate ability, it turns out, because the single more important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.”

 

“When I find myself focusing overmuch on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal, I remind myself to ‘Enjoy now’. If I can enjoy the present, I don’t need to count on the happiness that is (or isn’t) waiting for me in the future”.”

 

“[S]tudies show that one of the best ways to lift your mood is to engineer an easy success, such as tackling a long-delayed chore.”

 

“Studies show that in a phenomenon called “emotional contagion,” we unconsciously catch emotions from other people–whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we’re infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy.”

 

“… 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.”

 

“There are no do overs and some things just aren’t going to happen. It is a little sad but you just have to embrace what is.”

 

“I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You’ll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You’ll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate small successes, that’s what you’ll do in adversity.”

 

“[S]tudies show that one of the best ways to lift your mood is to engineer an easy success, such as tackling a long-delayed chore.”

 

“Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

 

“I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can’t DO EVERYTHING I want.”

 

“Money. It’s a good servant but a bad master.”

 

“Because money permits a constant stream of luxuries and indulgences, it can take away their savor, and by permitting instant gratification, money shortcuts the happiness of anticipation. Scrimping, saving, imagining, planning, hoping–these stages enlarge the happiness we feel.”

 

“He is my fate. He’s my soul mate. He pervades my whole existence. So, of course, I often ignore him.”

 

“It isn’t enough to love; we must prove it.”

 

“There is no love; there are only proofs of love.” Whatever love I might feel in my heart, others will see only my actions.”

 

“The biggest waste of time is to do well something that we need not do at all.”

 

“What you do everyday matters more than what you do once in a while.”

 

“How we schedule our days is how we spend our lives.”

 

“There’s a great satisfaction in knowing that we’ve made good use of our days, that we’ve lived up to our expectations of ourselves.”

 

“[Benjamin Franklin] identified thirteen virtues he wanted to cultivate–temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility–and made a chart with those virtues plotted against the days of the week. Each day, Franklin would score himself on whether he practiced those thirteen virtues.”

 

“In the chaos of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters, and I can use my habits to make sure that my life reflects my values.”

 

“We won’t make ourselves more creative and productive by copying other people’s habits, even the habits of geniuses; we must know our own nature, and what habits serve us best.”

 

“For work: I bought some pens. Normally, I used makeshift pens, the kind of unsatisfactory implements that somehow materialized in my bag or in a drawer. But one day, when I was standing in line to buy envelopes, I caught sight of a box of my favorite kind of pen: the Deluxe Uniball Micro. “Two ninety-nine for one pen!” I thought. “That’s ridiculous.” But after a fairly lengthy internal debate, I bought four. It’s such a joy to write with a good pen instead of making do with an underinked pharmaceutical promotional pen picked up from a doctor’s office. My new pens weren’t cheap, but when I think of all the time I spend using pens and how much I appreciate a good pen, I realize it was money well spent. Finely made tools help make work a pleasure.”

 

“Sleep is the new sex.”

 

“Another study suggested that getting one extra hour of sleep each night would do more for a person’s happiness than getting a $60,000 raise.”

 

“I had everything I could possibly want — yet I was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had.”

 

“The desire to start something at the “right” time is usually just a justification for delay. In almost every case, the best time to start is now.”

 

“It’s so easy to wish that we’d made an effort in the past, so that we’d happily be enjoying the benefit now, but when now is the time when that effort must be made, as it always is, that prospect is much less inviting.”

 

“The most important step is the first step. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don’t get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing.”

 

“I’m not tempted by things I’ve decided are off-limits, but once I’ve started something, I have trouble stopping. If I never do something, it requires no self-control for me; if I do something sometimes, it requires enormous self-control.”

 

“In fact, for both men and women—and this finding struck me as highly significant—the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn’t make a difference.”

 

“There are times in the lives of most of us,” observed William Edward Hartpole Lecky, “when we would have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, though that yesterday had passed over us unappreciated and unenjoyed.”

 

“A sense of growth is so important to happiness that it’s often preferable to be progressing to the summit rather than to be at the summit.”

 

“This is one of the many paradoxes of happiness: we seek to control our lives, but the unfamiliar and the unexpected are important sources of happiness.”

 

“W. H. Auden articulated this tension beautifully: “Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.”

 

“The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer.”

 

“It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that if you have something you love or there’s something you want, you’ll be happier with more.”

 

My Take

As is readily apparent from the sheer volume of quotes that I have included from The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin has many, many pearls of wisdom to impart.  As she herself opines, the best reading is re-reading.  This was my third reading of The Happiness Project and it was still fresh for me and I had new takeaways that I had forgotten about.  I really appreciate her writing style that includes her own personal experience, reference to scientific research on topics related to happiness, relevant literary quotes and lots of practical tips on how to implement happiness improvements into your own life.  More than any other book, The Happiness Project has changed my life for the better.  I consider Gretchen Rubin to be my guru for happiness.  Often as I go through my day, a quote from The Happiness Project (such as “do it now,” “there is only love,” “outer order leads to inner calm,” “by doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished,” and “people don’t notice your mistakes and flaws as much as you think”) will pop into my head and influence my actions. Her other books, Happier at Home, Better than Before, and The Four Tendencies are also very much worth a read, but my favorite is still The Happiness Project.  A rare five stars and strongly recommended.

 

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228. The Alchemist

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Paul Coelho

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Foreign, Happiness

197 pages, published May 1, 1993

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Paulo Coelho’s extremely popular master work tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.

 

Quotes 

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

 

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

 

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

 

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”

 

“I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.”

 

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

 

“Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.”

 

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.”

 

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

 

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.”

 

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

 

“I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”

 

“To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.”

 

“It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.”

 

“There is only one way to learn. It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.”

 

“It is said that all people who are happy have God within them.”

 

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”

 

“If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”

 

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

 

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”

 

“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.”

 

“If you start by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work towards getting it.”

 

My Take

Like The Richest Man in Babylon, The Alchemist is falls into a category of allegorical books that I usually enjoy reading.  Through the simple tale of boy on a quest to find his treasure and fulfill his destiny, The Alchemist imparts numerous pearls of wisdom about life, love, dreams, fear, hope and happiness.  I highly recommend the audio version which is perfectly narrated by the wonderful Jeremy Irons.

 

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214. 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Author:  Dan Harris

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Self-Improvement, Happiness, Psychology, Memoir, Philosophy

256 pages, published March 11, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

10% Happier chronicles journalist Dan Harris’ journey of self discovery after having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America.  Harris explores the worlds of neuroscience, meditation, and network news and comes out the other end with increased calm, focus, and happiness.

 

Quotes 

“Everything in the world is ultimately unsatisfying and unreliable because it won’t last.”

“Make the present moment your friend rather than your enemy. Because many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment. And imagine living your whole life like that, where always this moment is never quite right, not good enough because you need to get to the next one. That is continuous stress.”

 

“But it was in this moment, lying in bed late at night, that I first realized that the voice in my head—the running commentary that had dominated my field of consciousness since I could remember—was kind of an asshole.”

 

“The Buddha captured it well when he said that anger, which can be so seductive at first, has “a honeyed tip” but a “poisoned root.”

 

“The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.”

 

“the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last.”

 

“What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, “respond” rather than simply “react.” In the Buddhist view, you can’t control what comes up in your head; it all arises out of a mysterious void. We spend a lot of time judging ourselves harshly for feelings that we had no role in summoning. The only thing you can control is how you handle it.”

 

“We live so much of our lives pushed forward by these “if only” thoughts, and yet the itch remains. The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.”

 

“Don’t you ever get pissed off, annoyed, irritated, sad—anything negative?” “No, I accept what is. And that’s why life has become so simple.” “Well, what if somebody cuts you off in your car?” “It’s fine. It’s like a sudden gust of wind. I don’t personalize a gust of wind, and so it’s simply what is.”

 

“The fact that you exist is a highly statistically improbable event, and if you are not perpetually surprised by the fact that you exist you don’t deserve to be here.”

 

“Perhaps the most meaningful exchange I had on the subject was a completely random discussion with my uncle Martin at my parents’ annual summer pool party. Martin, a former entrepreneur who was now in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, turned to me and asked an intriguing question: “Which is more exciting to you? Reality or memory?” I paused, considered it, and said, “I wish I could say reality, but it’s probably memory.” And then I asked, “What about you?” At which point Martin stared blankly back at me and asked, “What was the question?”

 

“Striving is fine, as long as it’s tempered by the realization that, in an entropic universe, the final outcome is out of your control. If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray. That, to use a loaded term, is enlightened self-interest.”

 

“There’s no point in being unhappy about things you can’t change, and no point being unhappy about things you can.”

 

“Marturano recommended something radical: do only one thing at a time. When you’re on the phone, be on the phone. When you’re in a meeting, be there. Set aside an hour to check your email, and then shut off your computer monitor and focus on the task at hand. Another tip: take short mindfulness breaks throughout the day. She called them “purposeful pauses.” So, for example, instead of fidgeting or tapping your fingers while your computer boots up, try to watch your breath for a few minutes. When driving, turn off the radio and feel your hands on the wheel. Or when walking between meetings, leave your phone in your pocket and just notice the sensations of your legs moving. “If I’m a corporate samurai,” I said, “I’d be a little worried about taking all these pauses that you recommend because I’d be thinking, ‘Well, my rivals aren’t pausing. They’re working all the time.’ ” “Yeah, but that assumes that those pauses aren’t helping you. Those pauses are the ways to make you a more clear thinker and for you to be more focused on what’s important.”

 

“She nailed the method for applying mindfulness in acute situations, albeit with a somewhat dopey acronym: RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification”

 

“When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.”

 

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

 

My Take

I listened to the audio version of 10% Happier (read by the author) and enjoyed Dan Harris’ easygoing and honest style.  He seemed like a very decent guy and I was happy to accompany him on his quest for inner peace.  Along the way, I picked up some good happiness tips, especially on the value of meditation and the importance of living in the present moment.

 

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Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Gretchen Rubin

Authors:  Suzann Pileggi Pawelski, James O. Pawelski

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Psychology, Self Improvement, Happiness

343 pages, published January 16, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Happy Together is written by Suzann Pileggi Pawelski and James O. Pawelski, a husband and wife team who specialize in the field of Positive Psychology.  In their book, the Pawelski present the concept of Aristotelian love, i.e. seeing the good in your partner and being motivated by that goodness to improve yourself, as the ideal in relationships.  Happy Together focuses on develop key habits for building and sustaining long-term love by promoting a healthy passion, prioritizing positive emotions, mindfully savoring experiences together, and seeking out strengths in each other.

 

Quotes 

The PERMA model of flourishing, for example, consists of five elements of a fulfilling life.  Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.  Relationships, of course, are right at the center of PERMA.  Indeed, relationships may be the most important part of a happy and flourishing life.

 

My Take

As my friends and family are well aware, I am very interested in the topic of happiness and actively try to structure my life in a manner that will increase my happiness.  As such, I read a lot of books on the subject of happiness and was very interested in reading Happy Together after seeing it recommended by best-selling author (The Happiness Project, Happier at Home, Better than Before, The Four Tendencies) and happiness guru Gretchen Rubin (who has had a huge impact on the way I live my life).  I liked, but did not love, Happy Together.  When I read a book like this, I like to have a lot of practical tips as takeaways.  There were a few that I will try to implement.  Namely, the importance of taking time to savor positive experiences in your relationship and expressing gratitude to your partner on a regular basis with the emphasis on them.  I also liked a metaphor that the authors use of a superpower cape with a red side and a green side.  The red side helps you fix problems in your relationship while the green side helps you engage in actions that improve a relationship by creating and sustaining happiness, satisfaction and enjoyment in a relationship.  It has inspired me to try to focus on the green side of the cape!

 

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164. 100 Days of Happiness: a novel (2nd Reading)

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Fausto Brizzi

Genre:  Fiction, Happiness

368 pages, published August 11, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

100 Days of Happiness tells the story of Lucio Battistini, a resident of Rome, who is separated from his wife Paola and their two young children (Lorenzo and Eva) after she learns that he has had an affair.  Lucio is sleeping in the stock room of his father-in-law’s bakery when he learns that he has inoperable cancer and only 100 days to live, give or take.  Lucio buys a notebook and the first item he writes in it is to win back Paola.  Lucio spends the next three months trying to do that and also enjoying every moment with a zest he hasn’t felt in years.  By the end of the journey, Lucio becomes the man he’s always meant to be.

 

Quotes 

“I know her by heart, and that doesn’t make me love her any less. Like a Dante scholar who learns the entire Divine Comedy and then just appreciates the poem even more profoundly.”

 

“The important thing is to make sure that when death comes, it finds us still alive.”

 

“Always remember that the only riches we possess are the dreams we have as children. They are the fuel of our lives, the only force that pushes us to keep on going even when things have gone all wrong.”

 

“Just work, work, work, even at the risk of making mistakes. And if and when you do make mistakes, and you do hurt someone, ask for forgiveness. Asking forgiveness and admitting you’ve made a mistake is the hardest thing of all. But if someone else does you good, remember it always. Showing gratitude is every bit as complicated.”

 

“Every one of us has already experienced thousands of last times without even realizing it. Most of the time, in fact, you never even imagine that what you’re experiencing is the last time.”

 

“It makes me sad. Everything, even good things, makes me sad.”

 

“A chitchat shop. Simple but brilliant. Not even Leonardo da Vinci ever came up with this one. It’s like a pharmacy that stocks friendship.”

 

“Sometimes real troubles give you a strength you never had before”

 

Papà was a professional bullshit artist so outstanding in his lying skills that if he’d set his mind to it, he could easily have become prime minister of Italy.

 

My Take

A mantra of one of my favorite writers and happiness guru Gretchen Rubin is that the best reading is re-reading.  I took that to sentiment to heart when I re-read 100 Days of Happiness (the first re-read during my thousand book quest) (this time I read the book instead of listening to the audiobook).  It was time well spent because I loved this book even more the second time through.  While I still enjoyed themes and characters, on the second reading, I noticed all of the small details that give Lucio’s world texture and depth.  His daughter saying “meow” instead of “ciao,” the marriage proposal to his wife that was spoiled by his best friend Umberto, his reminiscing about youth travel when he tries to relive the experience 25 years later, the folks who inhabit the Chit Chat shop, and the regular invocation of Leonardo Da Vinci.  While 100 Days of Happiness made me think again about how I would live my life if the end was near, I also just loved spending time with Lucio, his family and friends.  Highly recommended.

 

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124. Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:   Heather Lende

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir, Advice, Happiness

176 pages, published April 28, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Find the Good is written by Heather Lend, an obituary writer from a small town in Alaska, and conveys her thoughts on how to live a meaningful, well-lived life.  Her theme is to find the good.  Lende remarks that we can choose to see any event–starting a new job or being laid off from an old one, getting married or getting divorced–as an opportunity to find the good.  As she says, “We are all writing our own obituary every day by how we live. The best news is that there’s still time for additions and revisions before it goes to press.”

 

Quotes

“The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way.”

“I have a friend who says we spend the first half of our life building it and the second half preventing it from falling apart. I’d rather be under construction when I die.”

 

“You don’t have to sing in a choir to see that a group of committed people who care about something that makes life a little brighter, and work hard at it, can accomplish more together than alone, but it helps.”

 

“When our mothers die, we are on our own; there is no one to call for help, no one to blame, and no one left who has a copy of your grandmother’s recipe for the traditional Christmas coffee cake, which you can’t find anywhere.”

My Take

I picked up Find the Good from the audio book shelf of my beloved Boulder Library.  It is a quick read written by someone with a unique perspective (an Alaska obituary writer) with some nuggets of wisdom.  I enjoyed listening to it, but after finishing, it faded quickly.  Hence, the ☆☆1/2 rating.

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