Happier at Home

What I noticed most when reading Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin was how familiar the material seemed. It’s not surprising that she refers to her 8 Splendid Truths and her Personal Commandments from The Happiness Project and her blog. These are the underpinnings of her pursuit of happiness, and it makes sense that she will apply them to the nine domestic areas she explores in detail in her newest book: possessions; marriage; parenthood; attitudes; time; body; family; neighborhood; living in the now.

 

She did approach some of these areas in thought-provoking ways. The point that when dealing with happiness re possessions it isn’t so much organization, elimination, or accumulation but engagement with our possessions that brings happiness was interesting. A craving for simplicity is not so much because of a profusion of too many things, but that so many of those things are meaningless to our lives because we don’t engage with them. For example, clothes that don’t fit or something that is broken or no longer meets a need. The disengaged stuff feels like burdens. The goal is to only have possessions with which we engage and/or love.

 

Something that resonated personally was her decision to take time to thoroughly read manuals for electronics or computer programs or cameras to lessen feelings of incompetence and frustration. Scheduling manual reading time is now on my to-do list. There are so many pieces of equipment, etc. with which I have only a nodding get-by acquaintance.

 

To make changes that bring joy, satisfaction, engagement, one must identify what elements do that for you. Sometimes the immediate result of knowing one’s self better means facing the truth of one’s limitations, shortcomings, and even indifference to certain aspects of life. That might bring sadness and unhappiness short-term, but eventually it allows one to direct efforts, time, and resources to that which is most likely to achieve a happier life. You can set meaningful goals once you understand yourself rather than taking a scatter-gun approach.

 

Rubin creates habits and rituals based on her needs and personality. So must we. Though she writes of specifics, they will be different for each of us. Still, keeping in mind that gratitude is the key to a happy life and that we should slow down to appreciate the texture of our life, we will figure out our own specifics if we take the time to reflect.

 

She embraced good smells, including purchasing synthetic smells that stimulated Proustian memories from her past. For someone like me who has to avoid strong fragrances that exacerbate allergies and asthma that won’t work. But ideas such as “spending out”, i.e., not saving things for a special occasion and later, but really engaging with them frequently probably would play well for most of us.

 

With her blog, books, column in Good Housekeeping magazine, Rubin has lost freshness for me. I did find a few ways to have a happier home once I paused to reflect, but the ideas are getting stale for me. It may be time to move on.

The Passing of Time

I took some time last night to write in my journal about the first anniversary of our move to our retirement condo and the fifth anniversary of my husband’s retirement. I didn’t really finish reflecting because a neighbor called and invited us over for some fresh-baked peach cobbler. Of course we couldn’t turn that down.
Today while reading Gretchen Rubin’s blog, I followed a link to an excerpt from her upcoming book Happiness at Home. Here is a quote from that excerpt: As poet Robert Southey explained: “Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.” You can read more about this concept here.
I started thinking about that. Are the memories of my first decades the strongest? It does seem that after 40, things go by in a big blur. But I only have impressions from my pre-school years, not discrete incidents like I did once in school. Perhaps the regularity yet ascent of learning thru the grades plays a part. Each year presented new challenges. When you are a child, you also feel like you have all the time in the world; when you are 60, you see how precious the minutes are because there are fewer left to experience. You have friends that have left this world with its ticking off of time for eternity.
Another idea Gretchen mentioned is that if she got thru the next 3 or 4 months things would slow down. She calls this a delusion. I sure know that feeling, but I actually have had times slow down, though usually with some intentional planning. Without paid employment and children, one can control the flow of time better in retirement.
Several years ago I read The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka. She says, “When you transcend the boundaries you constructed from your past and set for your future and live in the NOW, you grow.” Ann Voskamp also wrote a post on her blog once about the only way to slow down time is to live in the now, noticing and giving thanksgiving for the details of the present moment.
I am a planner and like Gretchen, I have to-do lists in my head. I need to just “be” more, to go with the flow of time and be fully in the moment. That is the way to slow down the clock. Not easy to do when you have people expecting meals at certain times, etc. Is that why the first decades seem to have gone by more slowly? Children have few urgent responsibilities. They get caught up in the joy of the moment. A worthy goal for all of us.