Happier Podcast Book Club
A few years ago, we launched our Happier Podcast Book Club.
For this choice, Elizabeth suggested that we discuss Life in Five Senses. And of course I agreed.
Here’s the description:
For more than a decade, Gretchen Rubin had been studying happiness and human nature. Then, one day, a visit to her eye doctor made her realize that she’d been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses. She’d spent so much time stuck in her head that she’d allowed the vital sensations of life to slip away, unnoticed. This epiphany lifted her from a state of foggy preoccupation into a world rediscovered by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.
From the simple pleasures of appreciating the magic of ketchup and adding favorite songs to a playlist, to more adventurous efforts like creating a daily ritual of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attending Flavor University, Gretchen Rubin show us how to experience each day with depth, delight, and connection. In the rush of daily life, she finds, our five senses offer us an immediate, sustainable way to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us—as well as a way to glimpse the soul and touch the transcendent.
We talk about issues such as…
- my struggles to decide on a title
- why we take our senses for granted
- how I got the idea for the “What’s Your Neglected Sense?” quiz
- the design of the book
- the ending(s)
- how being in New York City influenced the writing of the book
- being an Abstainer
- whether I procrastinate with my writing
- my next idea for a book
Remember: Whenever it is and wherever you are, there’s always a book waiting for you.
Resources
It’s wedding season. If you need readings appropriate for a wedding, you can download suggestions from listeners here.
What We’re Reading
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[Music]
Gretchen
Hello and welcome to a happier a podcast about how to be happier. This week is our discussion for the Happier Podcast Book Club and I am thrilled to get the chance to be the featured author for my new book, Life in Five Senses. I’m Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, human nature, and surprise the Five Senses.
Gretchen
I’m in New York City, and joining me today from Los Angeles is my sister, Elizabeth Craft, who was both a character in my book and one of my best early readers.
Elizabeth
That’s me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A. And Gretch I’m very excited that today I get to interview you.
Gretchen
Yeah. This is going to be fun. Yeah. So a while back, we launched our happier podcast book club, and we’ve read so many terrific books and then Elizabeth, I have to say, it hadn’t occurred to me. But then you were like, let’s talk about your book for the podcast Book Club. That’s great.
Elizabeth
Yes, I feel like we talk about it a lot. Sort of bits here and there. But we haven’t had a central discussion, so I’m very excited. And Gretchen, I have to point out that you were on the New York Times bestseller list for Life in Five Senses. So congratulations on that. And here’s the description in case anybody hasn’t read it for more than a decade,
Elizabeth
Gretchen Rubin had been studying happiness and human nature. Then one day, a visit to her eye doctor made her realize that she’d been overlooking a key element of happiness her five senses. She’d spent so much time stuck in her head that she’d allowed the vital sensations of life to slip away unnoticed. This epiphany lifted her from a state of foggy preoccupation into a world rediscovered by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching from the simple pleasures of appreciating the magic of ketchup and adding favorite songs to a playlist.
Elizabeth
So the more adventurous efforts like creating a daily ritual of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attending Flavor University. Gretchen shows us how to experience each day with depth, delight and connection. In the rush of daily life she finds our five senses offer us an immediate, sustainable way to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us, as well as a way to glimpse the soul and touch the transcendent.
Gretchen
That’s it. That’s just about the size of it. Here.
Elizabeth
All right, Well, Gretch. One thing I wanted to start with, the title, because of the title is Life in Five Senses How Exploring the Senses Got me out of my head and Into the World. But for listeners who don’t know, there was so much discussion about what the title would be. I mean, this went on for months and months of you would call me or you would pull your family, you would talk to Mom and dad, you would talk to Christina agent you would talk to and who you work with.
Elizabeth
So give us some ideas of other titles that you consider.
Gretchen
Yeah. And this is the thing. It could go in so many different directions. And so the challenge was how do you sum up the book in a way that’s memorable, engaging, fresh, and also accurate? Because I, for one, get really annoyed when a book is very misleading. So there were two titles that I loved and that you also loved, but they were titles that many people vehemently cautioned me not to use.
Gretchen
Yes. So they were high pro, high con. So the first one is why ketchup is magic. And you very nicely gave me a catch up T-shirt because I went around talking about why ketchup is magic so much.
Elizabeth
And I love that title, but people felt it would sound too much like, yeah.
Gretchen
They thought it would seem too specifically food. The other one was licking the universe, which to me had this paradoxical mind blowing connotation. So I was very, very intrigued with that. But a lot of people and then I think I had like touching the universe or something. I tried to play with it, but a lot of people were like, No, that’s just.
Gretchen
No, no, no, no, no.
Elizabeth
Yes, they were turned off. I liked it because I thought it was so bold. But a lot of people were turned off by the idea of licking.
Gretchen
Yeah. And that was part of what made it powerful. So again, it’s like, Yes. One was Stretch out your hand, which if you read the book, you will see that I did manage to get that into the book on the very last page. Another was and I was very interested in this one, which was taste, touch, listen, go, which I liked the very kind of action.
Gretchen
And then it was like, okay, maybe not for maybe it should be taste, touch, go. But then people were like, Now what are you talking about? I love the word pilgrim. I love the idea of a pilgrimage. So I liked a pilgrim of the five senses, but people were like, No, that brings up all the wrong connotations. I liked brighter, bolder, sharper, deeper into the senses.
Gretchen
This was interesting. This is all the things we want because people would say, Well, what do you get from studying the five senses? And I would be like, All the things we want deeper connections with other people, creativity, focus, memory, chilling out and pumping up whatever you want. It’s all the things we want. But again, some people were just like, What are you talking about?
Gretchen
Out of my head and into my body? That basically got pushed into the subtitles. Yes. And then I had you know, I do like a poetic title, and I’ve always wanted to have a title that’s a sentence like one of something on my creativity bucket list. I love a really long title or a title. That’s a sentence.
Gretchen
And so I really liked The Brain is wider than the Sky.
Elizabeth
And is that from a poem? Yes.
Gretchen
So that is from the Emily Dickinson poem is and it’s so apt if you know what the book says. It’s so incredibly apt. Yes, it’s the brain is wider than the sky for put them side by side. The one the other will contain with ease and you beside. So it’s like the brain is wider than the sky. It’s so true and it’s so thought provoking and but it just didn’t feel like the right title for the book.
Gretchen
And then I also have learned and I kind of feel like I’ve learned this is like you want the title to tell people what the book is about. It’s just that for a nonfiction book, that’s really helpful. Several people said to me, some of these titles sound like they would be novels. They don’t feel like what what I expect from you in a nonfiction thing.
Gretchen
In the end, I love Life in Five Senses. It solved every issue. But Elizabeth, you stood by my side. You put up with a lot of conversation because because also we’d be talking about something else like me with anybody. And all of a sudden I would just veer into titles. And it was just it was a dark road for sure.
Elizabeth
Well, I just find it really interesting because I think this is what we don’t see, right? We just see where the title lands. So anyway, I also love the brain is wider than the sky, but I do love where you ended up. And now it feels, of course, like it couldn’t have possibly been named anything else.
Gretchen
So fated and so apt so. And I’m like, How could I have thought of anything else? But also bright is whiter than the sky. I got it into the book as well. So a lot of the thing I got things under the subtitle, a lot of things I did, I did ketchup is magic that’s in the book.
Gretchen
So a lot of these things, I did have my fun with them, even though they didn’t make it into the title.
Elizabeth
All right, great. Well, before we get to some questions from me and from listeners, I’d love to have you read a passage, the passage that is on page five to get us in the mood to talk five senses.
Gretchen
So this is me coming home from the doctor. My walk home took only 20 minutes, but those 20 minutes were transcendent. I kept thinking, This experience is now it’s here, and it’s also past never to be repeated. In that time I woke to a profound truth. I had my one body and its capacities right now, and I wouldn’t have them forever.
Gretchen
In college, I’d read a cheap edition of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady on a top bunk with no proper reading light. Now I had to enlarge my smartphone’s font to answer my emails. One day I might no longer hear my husband Jamie’s loud yawns or see our dog Barnaby triumphantly raced through the apartment with his beloved abominable Snowman toy in his mouth.
Gretchen
Already our daughter Eliza was out of the apartment and we had just a few years left with Eleanor under our roof. I was a dutiful caretaker of my body, careful to get enough sleep to exercise, to eat healthy food, to get my checkups and vaccines, to wear sunglasses and a seat belt. But was I appreciating my body and its powers?
Gretchen
Was I savoring each day of my life as it was unfolding? Was I paying attention to the people I loved? As I pressed the keypad to let myself into our apartment building. I accepted the truth that until now I’d ignored. I was running out of time. Shadows had begun to slant eastward over Central Park and over my life.
Gretchen
I didn’t want to come to the end and think so many things happened to me. I wish I’d been paying attention. There you go.
Elizabeth
It’s a great passage. All right Gretch, coming up, we are going to talk all about Life in Five Senses. But first, this break.
[Music]
Elizabeth
Okay. We are back with the Happier Book Club, talking about Life in Five Senses. Gretchen, it’s interesting. One thing I kept thinking about when you were working on this book is that we don’t realize we’re not tapping into our five senses.
Elizabeth
I think people just think, well, it’s my five senses. Of course, I’m experiencing them all day, every day, and they seem ever present. What’s your thought on that?
Gretchen
I mean, that was one of the things that surprised me, too. And of course, I should say not everybody has five senses. We’re all dealing with our own complement of senses. So I was because I write about myself, I was focusing on my own five senses as sort of the example to examine. But I would have thought I couldn’t ignore it.
Gretchen
I would have thought, well, of course I notice if something’s uncomfortably scratchy, because how would I not know that? Or of course, I would know if I didn’t like the taste of something, because how could I help but notice it? But over and over, I would find I had no idea. I just. I was so stuck in my head that I was only dimly aware of my own preferences about things that I could very easily have fixed or addressed or made better or enjoyed more.
Gretchen
I just I didn’t realize how much information can fade into the background if we’re not paying attention. And that means for one thing, like I had opportunities to like, make things better by getting rid of things that annoyed me or drained me or brought me down. But then I also lost opportunities to enjoy things and really delight in things and experiences because I didn’t even really notice how much I liked them.
Gretchen
So our mother, mom was visiting and I’d remember her saying, Oh, I love walking up and down the avenues in New York City and seeing all the flowers sitting in buckets outside the little grocery stores. And I thought, Oh my goodness, I love seeing the flowers outside the grocery stores and I’ve never, never noticed them before. I never had registered that the minute she said it, I was like, I love those too, but how would I not notice that I love them?
Gretchen
I just hadn’t noticed it.
Elizabeth
Well, and is that how you got the idea for doing your was your neglected sense?
Gretchen
Because this. Right? Exactly. Because I’d been thinking about it. Of course, I unfortunately, I wrote the quiz after the book was already turned in. So, you know, I just couldn’t stop working on the stuff. Yeah. Okay. So. So the idea for the neglected senses, we all have senses that we appreciate more. And so we have fun with them and we have adventures with them and we talk about them and we learn about them and we use them for comfort or pleasure.
Gretchen
And then we have neglected senses. And these are things that we don’t think about very much and we don’t seek out new experiences and we don’t like to talk about them or learn about them especially. And we might be more aware of the negative possibilities of that sense than the positive possibilities of that sound. So like you really notice when something isn’t right, but you don’t really turn to it for pleasure or comfort.
Gretchen
Yeah. And so for me, it became clear that some of the senses I really did turn to and I really did already enjoy to a much greater degree than other ones. But it turns out this I wasn’t alone in thinking this was kind of a hard thing to know about yourself. We notice what we notice, but we don’t notice what we don’t notice.
Gretchen
So yeah. And that quizzes at gretchinrubin.com/quiz. And now, you know, people are taking it so fast and eating to hear what people think about their neglected scents.
Elizabeth
I feel like every time someone responds, it’s a different sense. And like in one family it’ll be five different senses that are the neglected scents. Well, now you love a quiz and you also love different design elements in your house. You’re very you like, you know, different structures, all of that. One thing a lot of people are commenting on and they’ve commented to me personally, just people in my life is about the end papers, what you call it in the book.
Elizabeth
Explain what that is and how you came up with it, because it is really catching, eye catching.
Gretchen
Well, one of the themes for the book is look for the overlook and kind of make everything good. Like I talk about the Met, like why does the net have a neglected, boring stairwell? It’s the Met. Everything should be cool. And so with my book, I’m like, I want everything to be thought through and everything to be as rich as possible.
Gretchen
And so, so and papers are if you don’t know, it’s like when you open a book and it’s like the inside of the cover and then the page that faces it. So it’s sort of the ends of the book. Those are end papers. And I asked my editor and very nicely Sheila, she said I could, could I put quotations on those and papers like instead of just having them be blank, have them have something there.
Gretchen
So if people were looking for the overlooked, it’s like, okay, sometimes you just skip past the papers, but this is really will reward if you stop and notice them. There’s also, Elizabeth you know this more than anybody, I love a quotation and when I’m editing a book I often have to go through several times and just like take out layers and layers of quotations because you just can’t have a quotation on every page.
Gretchen
Just it’s very annoying. But of course, it breaks my heart every time I have to take one out because I love them all so much. So this is great because I was like, okay, in the end papers, they’ll be beautiful. They’ll be these quotations that I think can stand on their own and be very thought provoking. And so there’s another way for me to make them part of the experience of reading the book, even though I can’t really fit them into the actual content of the book.
Gretchen
So that was really exciting.
Elizabeth
Yeah, and I love that they’re on a green background. I love the whole the color. Yes. This book, the cover is so colorful. The end papers have this beautiful green. You’ve really got me appreciating color more. You’re conscious of wearing color on your book tour. Just loving that.
Gretchen
No that’s good. But here’s another thing that’s cool about the design of the book. So again, to my editor, I was like, okay, I have this thing about looking for the overlooked, and one of the things I love to do is look for hidden images in logos. So like the Tostitos logo has like two people having fun with a, with a bowl of chips, which if you don’t notice it, you don’t notice it.
Gretchen
And then once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s like the arrow in the FedEx logo. You’re like, Oh my gosh, this is the How did I never see this before? It’s so fun. So I said, Can we hide something on the dust jacket? So that people would have the fun of looking for it and discovering it?
Gretchen
So if you look at the book, at the beginning of every chapter, there are five circles that are icons for the five senses, and those are interesting to look at themselves like how in an abstract image, it’s evoking a sense. It’s interesting to figure that out. So for the US edition of the book, the designer took one of those circles and hit it on the dust jacket and people have found it so it can be found.
Gretchen
It’s hiding in plain sight. Once you see it, you will be like, Oh, here is where that icon is hiding. But it’s not easy to find it. But I was just so delighted that they let me have my fun and did such a such a great job with making it hard enough to be hard, but not so hard that people would throw the book across the room in frustration.
Gretchen
So it’s fun.
Elizabeth
Yes, I.
Gretchen
Found it. Oh, yes. Very good. Yeah, you did find it.
Elizabeth
That’s right. Now, something about your approach, Gretchen, in your writing and I mean on this podcast, is that you believe in not telling people what to think or what to do, but you like to give people ideas to think about and then put their own spin on it. And something that we have both noticed over the years is that so much of what you learn comes after the book comes out because you get so much feedback.
Gretchen
Yeah, and that’s one of the things that I feel so fortunate. I feel like the world is my is my research assistant. And as people, whether they’re readers or listeners, as they come back and put their spin on it and they’re examples of it and how they took an idea that’s so fascinating to me. And it’s interesting because, I mean, when I’m writing it, it’s like what I do is not that important.
Gretchen
It’s more I’m trying to show the kind of thing a person can do, and then that helps other people have their own ideas. So often people will be like, Oh, you talked about this. And then I went off and did this other thing. It’s like, that’s great because it’s not that a person and it’s the same thing with something like The Happiness Project.
Gretchen
It’s not that my project is the project that everybody should do, but that sometimes in order to figure out what to do for ourselves, we have to react to what somebody else has done really well. That would work for me, but that wouldn’t work for me. Or I can think of a better way to do it, or I know what I would like to pursue.
Gretchen
And so it’s like visiting the Met every day. Some people are like, That is amazing. I absolutely want to do that. I’m going to I’m going to start doing that next month. I’m all in. And then other people are like, Oh my gosh, the world is so full of variation and beautiful things to see. Why in the world would you go back to the same place day after day?
Gretchen
That is just a waste of opportunity. It’s like, That’s fine. This might give you an idea or might make you decide, Well, what I need to do is go on a different hike every time so that I take advantage of the variety of the world. It’s just to help people get started in their own thinking.
Elizabeth
Yeah, and I noticed the more work you do, the more you are a believer in. It’s what everyone wants to do.
Gretchen
100%. That is so, so, so true. I feel it more strongly all the time.
Elizabeth
Oh, Gretch. Being one of your early readers, as you mentioned, I know we talked a lot about the ending because you sort of have two endings of the book. Yeah, I thought and others thought you could have just one ending, but you decided to keep both. So talk about that.
Gretchen
Okay. Well, I have to say I’m going to pat myself on the back. I’m really good at writing endings as a writer. I’m really good at writing endings, and I don’t know why. It’s always at the end. I come to this point and I see it all. It’s all in front of me and it just pours out. Like I love writing endings.
Gretchen
It’s often my favorite part of the book will be the last page, like the last page of my Winston Churchill book. I’m just like I said, everything I wanted to say, and here it is. And I just want to weep uncontrollably with my own book. So there you go. But so with this book you write and this is an example of why are you asking somebody to take the trouble to have an opinion if you’re going to be like, No, I’m right.
Gretchen
But sometimes you have to hear what it’s like. You flip the coin and if you’re like, Oh, I want to keep flipping, it’s like, okay, now you know your own mind. So I said to you, Do you think I need both endings? And you said, I don’t think you need both endings. And then I thought, I cannot give up either ending because both endings are doing something very different and they, they both need to be there.
Gretchen
And it’s kind of odd to have what can be considered two endings. But I loved them both and I felt like they were different and so I couldn’t take out one without losing something significant.
Elizabeth
So people will have to read the book to see what these two endings are. Yes, it’s a great tease. And they are both great endings. Yeah, they’re just happened to be two of them.
Gretchen
And they’re very different. One is about me and one sort of about the transcendent world.
Elizabeth
I would say so., That’s endings for beginnings. At the beginning of each chapter, you tell a little story about an encounter with a sense. Why did you decide to start the chapters that way? I really like that. I feel like it grounds me in the chapter.
Gretchen
Oh, that’s good. Well, it’s funny because these represent a real evolution in my writerly approach. So originally, what are now just these little stories that are maybe two or three paragraphs long? We’re just like a very clear sense memory. Related to that sense, they were much longer. They were three pages. A big thing that I wanted to achieve with the book that I didn’t spend as much time on as I had originally intended to, which is what is it like to live in New York City?
Gretchen
I really wanted to paint a picture of what it’s like to live in New York City. I think it does come through in the book, but originally I was going to put more time into that part of it. And so the the sections were were like that. But as I was doing it and as it was going through, I just realized that they weren’t working.
Gretchen
They were too long. They felt like they, it was part of a different project. It wasn’t knitting things together. It was sort of making things fall apart a little bit. And yet I like the idea of starting with something very like a very, very concrete memory or association. So I just made them very, very tight. But I’m glad you like them because arguably they weren’t.
Gretchen
They aren’t necessary, but.
Elizabeth
I like them.
Gretchen
Okay, good. They really are just there to show the power of that sense. So that’s good.
Elizabeth
All right. Coming up, we are going to have questions and comments from listeners. But first, this break.
[Music]
Elizabeth
Okay, Gretch. We’re back. We have some great comments from listeners we want to go through and then we’ll get to some questions, Rodah said. I’ve paid so much more attention to my senses. I’m reading and listening to the book. I’ve recently harvested potatoes from my garden.
Elizabeth
The sight of the ruby red and pearl white of the new potatoes was in stark contrast to the rich black soil. The potatoes were like gems waiting to be discovered. That’s poetic.
Gretchen
Beautiful, beautiful.
Elizabeth
Yes, Leah said. Sharing taste memories has been my favorite way to connect with my dad. I learned about his favorite meal growing up, tater tot casserole. Hey, we’re Midwesterners and the desert, his dad used to pick up. Blueberry coffee cake from a bakery that’s still in operation. For Father’s Day, I’m going to surprise them with this meal, and I can’t wait to hear more about specific memories he has.
Elizabeth
I’m also looking forward to doing taste parties too. I created a 33 for 33 bucket list after picking up the Happiness Project right before my 33rd birthday a few weeks ago and hosting an event is on the list. I love it.
Gretchen
This is such a great idea. For a birthday or a Father’s Day or a milestone is like to create a meal that someone loves from the past. I think that’s such a good idea.
Elizabeth
Yes. Gretch. Here’s a question from Rebecca. She said, I’m interested in the connection between the five senses and our sense of place. Gretchen, how do you think your location in New York City affected your five senses experiment? I think it would be interesting to hear from your listeners in future episodes about five senses, portraits of the places they live.
Elizabeth
For example, My Five Senses Portrait of Montgomery, Alabama would be the sight of pink, red and white azaleas blooming in yards in the spring. The sound of the Gospel choir at Martin Luther King Junior’s former church, Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. The tangy, crunchy taste of a fried green tomatoes sandwich, the pungent smell of wood smoke at rural bonfires, the feeling of cool rain on your hot skin during a torrential downpour during the summer.
Gretchen
I love that.
Elizabeth
Yes. When you talked about the new York City of it all.
Gretchen
Yes.
Elizabeth
For sure Impacted your experience during the book?
Gretchen
No, absolutely no. It made me tune in to New York City much more. But I never really did sit down to write a Five Senses portrait of my New York City. Of course, everybody’s New York City is different. But this is wonderful because I thought about, you know, I’ve done a lot of five senses portraits now. I did one of Jamie, I did one of me.
Gretchen
I’m writing one of Barnaby. It’s kind of a fun exercise, but to do one of a place? Don’t you feel like we’re getting such a concrete sense of what it is like in Montgomery? A place I’ve never been. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we should.
Elizabeth
That could be a great. Try this at home to do a five senses portrait of where you live.
Gretchen
Yes. Excellent. Yes. And absolutely. I think for anybody, any place that you were in a study of the five senses would be so shaped by that. Well, listen I remember when I was deep into the five senses, as you pointed out, how much you loved the sound of cicadas in Kansas City. And we went out and we recorded them and we were again, I never thought about how much I love the sound of the cicadas of Kansas City until you pointed it out to me.
Gretchen
So this is a really great way to, like, tap into a place.
Elizabeth
Now Gretchen the happier in Hollywood facebook group Shannon said, I’m hosting my neighborhood book club and Life in five Senses is our book. This month, there are usually 8 to 12 women in attendance. What would be a couple of fun, low maintenance, easy prep experiments that I could do. I have the discussion questions and asked everyone to take the quiz already.
Elizabeth
So this is fun. There’s lots of great five sense, five senses experiments you’ve come up with.
Gretchen
Yeah, Yeah. Well, one is the magic of ketchup, which. Yes. Why? Ketchup is magic, Is that it has all of the five tastes sweet, sour, bitter and umami. And people really, really love to have a taste of Heinz ketchup, an experience that. Another really fun, easy thing is to take something that has a strong smell and see how pinched one nostril closed and then the other to see how our two nostrils smell slightly differently.
Gretchen
Something’s odor will be different depending on which nostril it is, but I think it’s hilarious. Something very ordinary that we all take for granted is tinfoil. Tinfoil is bonkers. Pass around some tinfoil, tell people to appreciate it. That is bonkers. If you can pull up a laptop and show something online, you can show people the picture of the dress, which is the dress which is white and gold stripes or blue and black stripes.
Gretchen
Elizabeth, remind me which, which one do you see?
Elizabeth
Golden White.
Gretchen
That’s what I see, too. Yeah. No, but that’s wrong. The actual color of the dress is blue and black, and that’s just funny to see. People really do see different things. There’s also a really funny illusion called the monkey business illusion. Just search for monkey business illusion. That is really, really fun. People get a big kick out of that. Then taste comparisons.
Gretchen
In a previous comment she mentioned doing taste parties and I think this is really fun. You just take anything that you think people enjoy that comes in different varieties and ask people, Did you know varieties of apples, varieties of vanilla ice cream and varieties of black tea or whatever and have people compare them. I just think that’s really, really fun.
Elizabeth
So many great ideas Gretch. Mhm. This comes from Rebecca. She says there was a passage in Life in Five Senses that I had to read to my husband about how you’re an abstainer when it comes to sugar. My husband is an abstainer and I am a moderator like your husband. My husband really identified with that passage. But I also noted in a couple of places in the book where you did break your abstaining role to try something with sugar.
Elizabeth
How were you able to break that rule and still be an abstainer? Did you find yourself mired in cravings afterward? How do you handle ice cream being in the house? My husband can’t seem to break the rule and not go on the spiral, whereas I am mostly fine with him abstaining. Every so often, it would be nice to share something with him or go to a different restaurant or keep a sweet food in the house.
Elizabeth
I would love to hear your take.
Gretchen
Yes, Well, so many thoughts. So I did break my rule because in flavor university, we were trying breakfast bars and so I was like, okay, I’m here. I’m going to try the breakfast bar. So I did do that. I found that it didn’t, it was very specific to a situation. So when I was back in my normal context, it did not affect me that way.
Gretchen
And I will say this if you are a person who wants to basically be an abstainer but then every once in a while you want to have a sweet treat. And that’s I would say most abstainers are like that. I pretty much abstain all the time except for something like like this. But most people want to have occasional exceptions.
Gretchen
And so I would say the thing to do is have a planned exception. A planned exception is when you decide in advance, you look forward to it, you go follow through with it and then you look back on it with pleasure. So this is something like it’s our anniversary. We’re going to our favorite restaurant. They have the most amazing tiramisu in the whole city.
Gretchen
We’re going to go there. I’m going to eat it. It’s going to be great. And you go and you eat it and it’s great. And then it’s like. But basically it’s just that one exception. It’s not like, Oh, now I’m not in abstainer or any more for the rest of the week, or now that I broke my chain, I have to start all over from the beginning.
Gretchen
It’s like, no, you did exactly what you said you were going to do, right? You planned and accepted. What this is different from saying like, Oh, I’m not going to eat any sugar. I’m going to skip dessert tonight. Oh, I walk into a restaurant right? Do you know they have this amazing tiramisu? Oh, well, life’s too short not to try it.
Gretchen
I’ll regret it if I don’t try it. And it’s like you’re making up your mind in the moment. That’s often what people regret. And so we’re having something in the house. It’s just like, I don’t have an exception for that. But I want to emphasize that with this people are very different. I’m not saying that my way works for everyone.
Gretchen
I’m just saying that this is what works for me and this is something we all have to figure out for ourselves. I love not eating sugar, but it’s it’s not a choice that a lot of people want to make.
Elizabeth
So good luck, Rebecca, with that. Yeah, it’s an ongoing issue for many of us. Jim said, Do you find it hard to sit down and write? Do you procrastinate or get writer’s block?
Gretchen
No, I don’t. And I think one of the things that I do is when I’m working on a project, I work on the whole thing all at once. So if something is a challenge that I’m feeling stuck, I’ll just work on something else. And a lot of times, and I’m sure a lot of people have experienced this is sometimes when you take a break for something, you sleep on it or you go for a walk or Elizabeth, you know, sometimes you’ll take a lap, what do you call it?
Gretchen
Take a lap.
Elizabeth
Or a lap around the studio. Back when we worked in offices.
Gretchen
Yeah, you sort of break through. And so I find that by like switching to whatever I feel like working on at a time. A lot of times when I go back to something that was a struggle, then I can figure it out. I do write every day. I feel almost a compulsion to write. So I have a lot of things that no one will ever see that I’ve been working on, that I write and, you know, I just read and take a lot of notes.
Gretchen
And I mean, Elizabeth, sometimes we will be doing the show notes and I’ll be talking to you. And I’ll be like, wait I’ve to write this down, I can write down I’ve gotta to move this to here. Like I just get caught up in my own, which has nothing to do with the podcast. It’s just my own like odd projects that are, but I’m in front of the computer, so I can’t resist making a note or getting pulled into other bits and bobs that I have running.
Gretchen
So that is not my issue, but it can sometimes I can have a lot of documents open simultaneously. Let’s just say.
Elizabeth
Yeah, Gretch you have been like that your whole life I guess as your sister you have always been able to just sit down and concentrate, um and in fact, in some ways that led you to the four tendencies because you realized while you’re able to do this, many are not. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go take the Four Tendencies quiz.
Gretchen
Yes. Well, and I also think that that’s part of why I was led, right, writing Life in Five Senses, because I think I could. I’m really good at sitting down and focusing and I could be like walking and I’ll be, you know, editing something in my head. But that was pulling me out of everything that was happening around me.
Gretchen
So it was almost like I needed to offset kind of my tendency to be overly focused. So.
Elizabeth
Yes. Yeah. All right. Finally, Gretchen, we have a question from Amanda. She said, how do you get an idea for your next book? Do you ever start something but then lose interest in the subject?
Gretchen
I have been really fortunate because every book has sort of led to the next book. So like I wrote The Happiness Project and then I was like, But if you really had to say what’s key to happiness or what’s almost universal about happiness, I’d be like, well, it’s the idea of home. It’s hard to be happy if you’re not happy at home.
Gretchen
So I wrote Happier at Home. Then I realized, well, I’m writing about happiness, and a lot of times people are like, I know perfectly well what makes me happy, but I just can’t execute. It’s a problem of habit formation. So that led me to better than before. And then that led me to the Four Tendencies because I wrote this whole book that I thought was packed with fascinating insights about habits, and all people wanted to talk about was the word tendencies.
Gretchen
So I wrote that. And then just for fun, I wrote Outer Order Inner Calm just because it’s like a hooky book, because I was just having so much fun with it. And then I wrote Life in Five Senses because I had just had this epiphany that I’ve been overlooking the five senses. So that was huge. But when I think back on that, I have been talking about color for a long time, Elizabeth I think color was me understanding a piece of it and not understanding like the whole of it.
Gretchen
But I did write something called My Color Pilgrimage, this kind of odd little thing. So it’s not that I’ve lost interest in it, it’s just that it’s like I turn to the bigger project, but now I want to turn back to that smaller project and see if I can turn it into something. I would say that for me, it’s not that I lose interest in things, it’s just that they don’t turn into something that anybody else would be interested in.
Gretchen
I have a lot of stuff where I’m like, I just don’t think anybody else is interested in this. My book of aphorisms, I’m really asking myself, does anybody want to read a book of aphorisms? I’m going to read a book of aphorisms because I simply can’t resist. I’m not sure that anybody else is going to want to read it.
Gretchen
So I can do a lot of stuff like that where I came to the end of what it was and it didn’t turn into anything for anyone else’s satisfaction. But, you know, I have my fun as I’m writing it, so that’s good.
Elizabeth
Do you know what your next book is going to be right now?
Gretchen
Well, I think I am going to finish this book of aphorisms. I mean, I just have this this giant trove of like incredibly, you know, this material. It’s just like heading in every direction. Some of it’s some of it’s original to me. Some of it’s things like proverbs of the profession, some of it’s aphorisms that other people have written that I also have all kinds of like strange accumulations relations of lists and and kind of oddities like I have this list of things that I think demonstrate a profound understanding of human nature.
Gretchen
You know, that old thing about how when instant cake mixes came on the market, people didn’t like them, so they had it so that you had to add an egg because people like something better. So I think that’s just a profound insight into human nature. I have a list of things like that or like things that were invented later or earlier than you would have expected, like the bicycle pretty late when you’re thinking, I think we would have figured this out earlier, What I’m going to do with that stuff, I have no idea.
Gretchen
Again, I’m just like taking my notes and accumulating it. But I need to sit down, look at the whole thing and try to figure out what the heck is this? If anybody has any ideas what this should turn into, I would love to hear them because I love the aphoristic style. I have dozens and dozens and dozens of books of aphorisms.
Gretchen
I love them. I find it incredibly intellectually exciting to try to write them. But yeah, what what this turns into. Stay tuned.
Elizabeth
We shall see. Yeah. Well Gretch, I’m so glad we got to talk about Life in Five Senses. Thank you to everyone for all of your comments and your questions. It’s funny because I both think it’s a great book to listen to because you read it, but I also think it’s a great one to have the hard copy because it really is visually arresting.
Gretchen
Yeah, it has photographs of different things and yeah, well Elisabeth it was so fun to talk about it with you.
Elizabeth
And.
Gretchen
Thanks so much and we’d still love to hear your impressions and reflections on life in five senses. If you have an idea about the aphorism book hit me up. Let us know on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. Drop us an email at podcast@gretchenrubin.com. Or as always, go to the show notes. This is happiercast.com/432 for everything related to this episode.
Gretchen
Remember whenever it is and wherever you are, there’s always a book waiting for you. And the resources. For this week we are heading into wedding season. If you are looking for reading books for weddings, if you go togretchenrubin.com/resources, look under readings and you will see many readings suggested by listeners. And what are we reading, Elizabeth, What are you reading?
Elizabeth
I am reading The Daddy Diaries by Andy Cohen.
Gretchen
And I am reading God Human Animal Machine by Meghan O’Gieblyn. And that’s it for this episode of Happier. Remember to try this at home. Read Life in Five Senses . Let us know what you think. Let us know what you tried. What’s your neglected sense? We want to know.
Elizabeth
Thank you to our executive producer, Chuck Reid, and everyone at Cadence 13. Get in touch. Gretchen’s on Instagram and Tik Tok at Gretchen Rubin and I’m on Instagram at Liz Craft. Our email address is podcast@gretchinrubin.com.
Gretchen
And if you like the show, do please be sure to tell a friend that really helps new listeners discover our show and we will shower you with gold stars if you do it.
Elizabeth
Until next week. I’m Elizabeth Craft.
Gretchen
And I’m Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining. Onward and upward.
[Music]
Elizabeth
Gretch, what, is there a most common question you’ve been getting in all your book events?
Gretchen
I think people often ask me what surprised me most. What surprised me most is how different everybody’s sensory experiences are. I knew that intellectually going into the book, but it’s still surprising to realize you can’t smell your home the way a guest smells it. That’s just surprising.
Elizabeth
It’s scary when you have two dogs.
[Music]
Gretchen
From the onward project.