My resolution to Embrace good smells has developed into a full-blown obsession. A few of my favorite perfumes: CB I Hate Perfume Demeter Fragrance Library Frédéric Malle To See a Flower Firep...
Nietzsche wrote, All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking, and his observation is backed up by science; exercise-induced brain chemicals help people think clearly. In fact, just stepping o...
Now that I know I’m an Upholder, an Abstainer, a Marathoner, a Finisher, and a Lark, and have spent a lot of time thinking about what is, and isn’t, important to me, I’m much better able to shape my h...
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, ask...
Discouraging as he’d been, hadn’t actually hit on my real worry about my project: Was it supremely self-centered to spend so much effort on my own happiness?
Often, when we try repeatedly to form a habit that we desire, we fail because we want to reap its benefits without paying the price it demands. I think constantly of that stark line from John Gardner,...
Once I’ve cleared away the things I don’t need, use, or love, my surroundings reveal to me, and to others, the things that matter most to me. Careful curation means that my space and my possessions re...
One day, I’d stop twisting my hair, and wearing running shoes all the time, and eating exactly the same food every day. I’d remember my friends’ birthdays, I’d learn Photoshop, I wouldn’t let my daugh...
One of the best ways to make myself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy myself.
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.
Upholders-tipped-to-Obligers have a commitment to both inner and outer expectations, for them, the pull of outer expectations is very hard to ignore; UPHOLDER/Obligers must be sure to articulate inner...
One regrets the loss even of one’s worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one’s personality. —OSCAR WILDE
Our lives are in the space between Isaiah Berlin’s We are doomed to choose and every choice may entail an irreparable loss and Borges’s Garden of Forking Paths, where every choice produces a quantum e...
When dealing with a child who refuses to meet an expectation, it’s important to try to understand the reason for that child’s behavior. While a Rebel child might think, You can’t make me, a Questioner...
Perfection may be an impossible goal, but habits help us to do better. Making headway toward a good habit, doing better than before, saves us from facing the end of another year with the mournful wish...
Tomorrow Loophole: As part of my investigation of First Steps, I’d identified tomorrow logic. Now doesn’t matter, because we’re going to follow good habits tomorrow.
Pushing myself, I knew, would cause me serious discomfort. It's a Secret of Adulthood: Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy. When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself,...
Recently I’d been intrigued to read about a self-publishing site, Lulu.com. According to the Web site, I could print a proper hardback book, complete with dust jacket, for less than thirty dollars.
Research suggests that when we have conflicting goals, we don’t manage ourselves well. We become anxious and paralyzed, and we often end up doing nothing.
Research—and my own experience—suggests that the less we indulge in something, the less we want it. When we believe that a craving will remain unsatisfied, it may diminish; cravings are more provoked...
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