This fall, my husband Jamie and I joined the ranks of “empty nesters.” I wrote a piece that was published in The Atlantic today about this new stage of life.
“If I reach the age of my still-active parents, I’ll be in the open-door phase of life longer than I was a child living in their home, longer than I was a child-free young adult, and longer than I was a parent raising children—a huge chunk of existence. But although many people in their youth imagine the experience of someday leaving home, going to college, or raising children, a remarkable number, on the other side of those years, arrive at the open-door moment having given it little thought.”
I’m interested in this transition, because for so many people—and certainly for me—it’s a time of reckoning.
Onward,
5 Things Making Me Happy
I was fascinated by the article “PhD student finds lost city in Mexico jungle by accident.” Imagine the excitement of being the student who put two kinds of data together to discover a city—one that held tens of thousands of people around 800 AD. I love stories of this kind of unintentional discovery—when a researcher finds an extremely significant document that has been lost in the archives of some library, or when an ordinary person realizes that they bought a priceless masterpiece at a garage sale.
If you’re looking for strategies to help yourself maintain a sense of calm and energy, consider this list of suggestions for grounding yourself in your own body through the five senses. We talk a lot about mindfulness—try some bodyfulness.
I’m excited to introduce my new course: Habits for Happiness. This course will support you in working on 1-3 specific habits throughout the year, so by the end of 2025, you’ll have successfully built these positive changes. It’s my most interactive course yet—more engagement from me and my team, more one-on-one accountability, and a library of content tailored to what you want to work on. Join me and make 2025 the year you make that habit stick.
A friend just shared this with me: “Medieval Library” background sounds. You can also browse the site for other intriguing possibilities, or use the sliders to customize a soundscape to suit yourself. For instance, “Gregorian Voices 9” can be turned louder or softer.
With some old friends, my husband Jamie and I recently visited the extraordinary MASS MoCA museum. Many rooms featured works by artist Sol Lewitt, but I have to admit that my attention was captured by the 1989 Wall Drawing 610 not because of its artistry, but because of the optical illusion it presented. It took me several minutes to be able to see the staircase from underneath as well as head-on. I do love an optical illusion.
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This week on Happier with Gretchen Rubin
PODCAST EPISODE: 508
Learn from Someone’s Mistake, Stay Connected in a Hard Time & Why Wednesday Is Special
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