Monthly Archives: May 2007

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good….Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.” –C.S. Lewis.

Because I’m the kind of person who likes to divide everything into categories, and enjoys trying to distill every idea into its essence, I’ve been trying to think of how to characterize the elements of a happy life. I have my earthshaking happiness formula, of course: To be happy, we must think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, … →

A few days ago, I was helping a friend clear out her closet (one of my favorite things to do), and I made a new observation about the nature of clutter. This seems counter-intuitive, but it makes sense: people who aren’t very interested in clothes (like me and my friend) are far more likely to have clothes clutter than people … →

Every Wednesday is Tip Day. This Wednesday: Six tips for feeling better about yourself. First came the self-esteem movement. Then came the backlash to the self-esteem movement. It’s pretty clear that repeating “I’m the greatest” or winning a trophy along with every other participant isn’t a good way to build self-esteem. At the same time, it’s a rare person who … →

I’ve decided that I need to do some more research on guilt. According to my ground-breaking happiness formula, to think about happiness, we need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. The Happiness Project showed me that in my case, to boost my happiness, I needed to do a lot of work … →