We’re late to it, I know, but my husband Jamie and I finally started watching the popular HBO Max TV show The Pitt. Each episode reminds me of how many things can go wrong for the human body, and how grateful I am for the work of doctors, nurses, hospital workers, scientists—everyone who works to restore people to health.
Onward,
5 Things Making Me Happy
Memorial Day weekend is fast approaching. Every year, I imagine that my summer will stretch long and empty, with plenty of time for me to tackle all my plans—then it passes in a flash. Now I do several “design your summer” exercises, to make sure that I make the most of the season.
Word watch! Here’s a wonderful term that I just learned, from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace: “snuggery.” Nicholas was directed to a landowner who had horses to sell: “The landowner…had a snuggery where he smoked.” A snuggery is “a snug cozy place, especially a small room.” How did I not know this word?
As someone who studies human nature, I’m very aware of people’s fascination with birth order. Many stereotypes about birth order aren’t confirmed by research, but a new economics study does make an intriguing connection. It suggests that the fact that firstborn children tend to have more of certain kinds of success may be due to the fact that younger children are exposed to viruses picked up by firstborn children and passed on to babies at home.
I enjoyed this short video of thirteen familiar birds with their songs, but I’m not sure why it’s labeled as “Bird Sounds from Your Childhood.” These are the same bird sounds I hear today.
I’ve had so much fun talking about clearing clutter and getting organized with the brilliant and hilarious Cas Aarsen, a/k/a “Clutterbug.” In this video, we talk about how to use my Four Tendencies framework and Cas’s Clutterbug framework to get things done. Plus I open the door on a closet that no one outside my family has ever seen before.
NEW IN THE HAPPIER APP
Design Your Summer
Want to plan a summer to remember? Try the new Design Your Summer tool in the Happier app. Choose a theme, build lists of what you want to watch, read and do, and capture fun memories along the way.
This week on Happier with Gretchen Rubin
PODCAST EPISODE: 587
Design Your Summer! We Share Our Plans—Plus the Fun of Creating a Signature Drink
INTERVIEW
Bruce Feiler
My old friend Bruce Feiler is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including Walking the Bible, Life Is in the Transitions, and The Secrets of Happy Families. His new book, A Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World—and How It Can Save Us, is available now.
Q: Can you suggest something we might try to help ourselves to become happier, healthier, more productive, or more creative?
Create a ritual! I’ve spent the last three years attending—and joining—life rituals in sixteen countries and six continents and I’ve seen firsthand how in a world that’s pulling us apart, rituals are the only thing strong enough to hold us together. Anything can be an excuse to create a ritual—a new relationship, the end of a chapter, the death of a loved one, a stressful move, a group of friends sharing a passion. All you need to great a successful ritual gathering is three things: boundaries, empathy, and love. You need to start by creating sacred space, you need to make everyone feel welcome, and you need to end with a moment of hope.
Q: Do you have a Secret of Adulthood? A lesson you’ve learned from life the hard way; something you’d tell your younger self?
My father understood the secret of life better than anyone I’ve ever met: the balance between short-term sacrifice for long-term gain and enjoying yourself along the way. I’m still trying, Dad!
Q: What simple habit boosts your happiness or energy?
Helping someone else get closer to a dream. Not sure if it’s a habit—and it’s certainly not simple—but it’s something I try to do every day because it’s the most satisfying way to live.
Q: Is there a particular motto that you’ve found very helpful?
When I was forty-three, I was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of bone cancer in my left leg. My twin daughters were three at the time. I spent the next two years on crutches. On Father’s Day, after a year of chemo and a seventeen-hour surgery to rebuild my left leg, I proposed that our family take our first walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Because of my crutches, I had to walk slower than everybody else. I learned about flaneurs, pedestrians in Paris in the 1800s who strolled the arcades in leisure. As a symbol of their status, flaneurs would take turtles for walks and let the reptile set the pace. That idea inspired my favorite line I ever wrote: “Take a walk with a turtle. And behold the world in pause.”
Q: Has a book ever changed your life?
A book about a book changed my life. In my twenties, I wrote a series of books about entering different worlds—Japan, Oxford and Cambridge, the American circus, and country music. While living in Nashville, I decided to reread the Bible, which I had never really read. It sat by my bed for two years gathering dust. On my first trip to Israel, a friend took me to a cliff overlooking the city, pointed to the golden dome in the center, and said, “That’s the rock where Abraham sacrificed Isaac.” It had never occurred to me that those stories happened in real places that you could touch and visit and feel.
“What if I travel along the route and read the stories along the way?” I thought. That journey, across three continents, five countries, and four war zones, became Walking the Bible. It spent a year-and-a-half on the bestseller list, became a TV series, and transformed my life in every way imaginable. Walking the Bible turns twenty-five this year. A Time to Gather is the closest thing in spirit to that book that I’ve written since.
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