To achieve greater clarity in my actions, I often invoke a bright-line rule, a useful concept from law. A bright-line rule is a clearly defined rule or standard that eliminates any need for interpreta...
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld advised aspiring comedian Brad Isaac that, because daily writing was the key to writing better jokes, Isaac should buy a calendar with a box for every day of the year, and ever...
Epicurus agreed, albeit in slightly more poetic phraseology: Of all the things that wisdom provides for living one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.
Epicurus wrote, We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it....
When Churchill was running for office for the first time, he went door to door to ask for votes. He knocked on the door of an irritable man who, when Churchill introduced himself, said, Vote for you?...
The second reason rewards pose a danger for habits is that they require a decision. A habit, by my definition, is something we do without decision making.
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have better self-control, and are more tolerant of frustration than unhappy people, while unhappy people are more often withdrawn, d...
He gave his assistant a stamped, addressed envelope with a check he’d written to an anti-charity, an organization whose policies he passionately opposes, with the instruction to mail the check if he h...
Some people love finishing, and some people love opening—both literally and figuratively. Finishers love the feeling of bringing a project to completion, and they’re determined to use the last drop in...
How about this, I suggested. Instead of feeling that you’ve blown the day and thinking, ‘I’ll get back on track tomorrow,’ try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoo...
Six obvious ways to make an activity less convenient: • Increase the amount of physical or mental energy required (leave the cell phone in another room, ban smoking inside or near a building). • Hid...
Couldn’t just jump into this happiness project. I had a lot to learn before I was ready for my year to begin. After my first few weeks of heavy reading, as I toyed with different ideas about how to se...
Scheduling makes us far more likely to convert an activity into a habit (well, except for Rebels), so for that reason, I schedule even some slightly ridiculous habits, such as Kiss Jamie every morning...
I was surprised to learn from my research, however, that the well-known notion of anger catharsis is poppycock. There’s no evidence for the belief that letting off steam is healthy or constructive. In...
In an interview in the Paris Review, novelist and Rebel John Gardner made an observation that I’ve never forgotten: Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay.
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...
The harder it is to do something, the harder it is to do it impulsively, so inconvenience helps us stick to good habits. There are six obvious ways to make an activity less convenient:· Increase the...
In the Strategy of Pairing, I couple two activities, one that I need or want to do, and one that I don’t particularly want to do, to get myself to accomplish them both. It’s not a reward, it’s not a t...
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 unap...
Unlike a reward, which must be earned or justified, a treat is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it.
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