Hello,

I love to discover a great podcast, and I enjoy NPR’s Life Kit—“tools to help you get it together.” I was particularly interested by the September 1, 2023, episode on “How to protect your ears and avoid hearing loss.” Around the same time that I listened to that discussion, I was talking to a veteran about his time spent serving in Syria, and he told me about how he’d lost a significant amount of hearing in one ear.

After I listened to the episode and had that conversation, I said to my daughters, “You need to protect your ears when you go to concerts! It’s so loud, you could damage your hearing.” And to my astonishment and relief, they both said, “Sure, we already wear earplugs when we’re anyplace loud, lots of people do.” They told me the kind of earplugs they used, and I ordered a pair for myself.

Writing Life in Five Senses helped me to realize how much I value my sense of hearing.

Onward,

5 Things Making Me Happy

I love miniatures, reliquaries, items cunningly fitted into compartments, traveling kits, and anything of that sort. So I was fascinated to learn about and examine the contents of a “sorceress’s kit” that was discovered in Pompeii.

Speaking of interesting podcasts—I met the brilliant Kim Scott years ago, when we were both working at the Federal Communication Commission, and we’ve been friends ever since. I’m a huge fan of her books, such as Radical Candor and Just Work, and she also has a terrific podcast, Radical Candor. Host Amy Sandler leads discussions with Kim and Radical Candor co-founder Jason Rosoff about what it means to be Radically Candid, why it’s simple but not easy to Care Personally and Challenge Directly at the same time, and why it’s worth it. The podcast features actionable tips, deep insights, and ideas for how to work well without losing your humanity.

In college, a friend made a wise observation that I’ve never forgotten: Never have just one crush. Along the same lines, it’s helpful to work on more than one creative project; it means that no one effort becomes all-important. For this reason, at the same time that I’m working on a major book project, I usually also work on a little “hooky book.” (Ask me about my book about “Secrets of Adulthood.”)

On a recent Little Happier episode, I talked about “desire paths,” the unplanned paths created by human or animal traffic which often show the most convenient route between two places. I was surprised by the number of people who emailed me after that episode aired. Park rangers, naturalists, city planners, and others emailed me to say, “Tell people to stay on the paths! Desire paths are destructive! Don’t trample the plants!” The point of my story was more metaphorical—that we should pay attention to the “desire paths” we create in our own lives, to find more convenient ways of doing things—but for these listeners, physical desire paths are a serious issue. Let’s all stay on the pavement, people.

When my family was in Montana this week, we played some games of Uno. In general, I don’t like any form of games, but for some reason, I do like Uno—these days, we play Uno Flip.

Updates

Even as an adult, every fall, I get that back-to-school feeling—and with it, the urge for new, better office supplies. If you feel the same way, check out my giveaway! From 9/6 to 9/13 on Instagram, I’m offering a chance to win one of my favorite productivity tools: a Xebec Tri-Screen 2 monitor, which adds two screens to any laptop. The winner will also get a signed edition of my book The Four Tendencies and a ticket to my 9/26 workshop on resolving work conflicts. Click here to enter. Open to US and Canada residents only.

Featured

ARTICLE

Surprising Insights from the Five-Senses Quiz

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INTERVIEW

Ellen Langer

Ellen Langer is an award-winning social psychologist who studies health, aging, decision-making, and mindfulness theory. Her new book, The Mindful Body, just hit shelves.

Q: Can you suggest something we might try to help ourselves to become happier, healthier, more productive, or more creative?

A: There is great power in being uncertain. Everything is always changing and the world looks different from different perspectives, so certainty is an illusion. When we think we know, we stop paying attention. But when we know we can’t be sure, we sit up and take notice. That active noticing is the essence of being mindful. Forty years of research on mindfulness without meditation has shown that becoming more mindful results in our becoming happier, healthier, more productive, and improves our relationships— and all we need to do to bring this about is to actively notice rather than mistakenly think we know.

Q: In your own life, have you found ways to tap into the power of your five senses? (For instance, I often take a sniff of a spice jar as I pass through my kitchen to help ground me in the present moment.)

A: In many of our studies we have found that vision is very amenable to improvement. So I have believed that our senses can be improved for sometime. I had an experience regarding vision that makes a similar point about the control we may have over our senses. One night when I was getting ready for bed, I struggled to get a contact lens out of my eye. I almost did serious damage when I realized that I forgot to put the lens in in the first place. The interesting thing about this was that my vision was fine all day. I haven’t worn a contact lens since then.

Q: Is there a particular motto that you’ve found very helpful? (I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”) Or a quotation that has struck you as particularly insightful?

A: My book The Art of Noticing is a book of one liners (each of which has been paired with one of my paintings). Several of them have proved to be helpful to me. When I’m about to get upset about something, my favorite one-liner is “ask yourself if it is a tragedy or an inconvenience?”

Q: What simple habit boosts your happiness or energy?

A: Mindfulness begets energy and is the essence of engagement. It feels good and is good for us. In fact, fun is only fun when we are being mindful. So to be happy and full of life, I remind myself to be confident but uncertain. It’s not that I don’t know, no one else does either.

Q: Has a book ever changed your life – if so, which one and why?

A: I know I’m supposed to think of a book I’ve read and think about how it changed my life, but the truth is that my life has changed the most in writing The Mindful Body. In doing so I became more aware of how our thoughts not only determine our happiness, but actually—literally—affect our physical health and may hold the cure for many if not all chronic illnesses.