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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 74d163b | Now that I know I'm an Upholder, an Abstainer, a Marathoner, a Finisher, and a Lark, and have spent a lot of time thinking about what is, and isn't, important to me, I'm much better able to shape my habits. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| acc3e72 | The very words we choose to characterize our habits can make them seem more or less appealing. "Engagement time sounds more interesting than than "email time"; "playing the piano" sounds more fun than "practicing the piano";" | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 8035f2c | Unlike a reward, which must be earned or justified, a "treat" is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 43ea84f | perhaps the most acute source of happiness from writing was the happiness of expressing a very complicated idea-the kind of idea that takes hundreds of pages to capture. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 2d507f8 | Some habits become completely automatic; others require some effort, always. What matters is to be moving in the right direction. There's a great satisfaction in knowing that we've made good use of our days, that we've lived up to our expectations of ourselves. The true aim is not to break bad habits, but to outgrow them. With the bright light of attention, we can recognize and acknowledge them, and leave them behind. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 708bfc5 | Often, when we try repeatedly to form a habit that we desire, we fail because we want to reap its benefits without paying the price it demands. I think constantly of that stark line from John Gardner, so significant for habits, when he observed, "Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay." Keeping a good habit costs us: it may cost time, energy, and money, and it may mean forgoing pleasures and opportunit.. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 3e23eaa | It struck me, in fact, that all of my work on habits and happiness was meant to help us construct, as much as possible, just that: everyday life in Utopia. Everyday life with deep, loving relationships and productive, satisfying work; everyday life with energy, health, and productivity; everyday life with fun, enthusiasm, and engagement, with as little regret, guilt, or anger as possible. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| a3f7632 | These small, everyday actions had their own value; the pressure of my daily habits would mold my future. These habits were little things on their own, but their combined weight was massive. I thought again of one of my favorite lines from Samuel Johnson: "It is by studying little things, that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 7429e7d | Things often get harder before they get easier. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 8b562d8 | Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 5575f73 | do once in a while. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| e45c3c8 | Perhaps--like writing, leadership, and a sense of humor--good habits are something that must be learned, but can't be taught. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 47cc065 | My ambition, however, was also a factor in leaving the law. I'd become convinced that passion was a critical factor in professional success... "I could see that in my co-clerks at the Supreme Court: they read law journals for fun, they talked about cases during their lunch hours, they felt energized by their efforts. I didn't." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 5fcd222 | Keeping a good habit costs us: it may cost time, energy, and money, and it may mean forgoing pleasures and opportunities--but not keeping a good habit also has its cost. So which cost do we want to pay? | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 2b3264c | I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can't DO EVERYTHING I want. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 54d4286 | The Levity Effect, | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| ace87fd | One flashy kind of commitment device is the "nuclear option." A friend who enjoys experimenting with strategies of personal productivity used this approach to quit drinking for sixty days. He gave his assistant a stamped, addressed envelope with a check he'd written to an "anti-charity," an organization whose policies he passionately opposes, with the instruction to mail the check if he had a drink before the time was up." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 61075bb | I've learned to put great store in my own observations of everyday life, because while laboratory experiments are one way to study human nature, they aren't the only way. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 893ac0c | I was comforted by the words of my model Benjamin Franklin, who reflected of his own chart: "On the whole, though I never arrived at perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet as I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man that I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| c9326ba | All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking, | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 5495e15 | Any single happy experience may be amplified or minimized, depending on how much attention you give it. | happiness happy mindfulness | Gretchen Rubin | |
| 37bfd8e | I'd asked myself, "Why do habits make it possible for people to change?" and now I knew the answer. Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| d53181c | leisure must be entered on the schedule as its own activity; it's not something I get only when I have nothing else to do. Because I always have something else to do. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 6c79e44 | For a happy life, it's important to cultivate an atmosphere of growth--the sense that we're learning new things, getting stronger, forging new relationships, making things better, helping other people. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| b8393de | One parent of a Rebel explained, "The best way to wrangle the Rebel child is to give the kid the information to make a decision, present the issue as a question that he alone can answer, and let him make a decision and act without telling you. Let him make a decision without an audience. Audiences = expectations. If he thinks you're not watching, he won't need to rebel against your expectations." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| ee44ae0 | A "routine" is a string of habits, and a "ritual" is a habit charged with transcendent meaning." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 805c32c | We should make sure the things we do to feel better don't make us feel worse. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| a51fa8f | In other words, habits eliminate the need for self-control. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| abcfc26 | It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously--and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about.. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| c35928b | Pouring out ideas is better for creativity than doling them out by the teaspoon. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 8485a70 | Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me.... They remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering what the next course is going to be like--and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 870638e | when we give more to ourselves, we can ask more of ourselves. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 58ecf7e | You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 59b34c0 | We set out to be wrecked. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 521c3be | People take less food when using tongs, instead of spoons, to serve themselves. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 4ba0da4 | The first and most important habits question is: "How does a person respond to an expectation?" When we try to form a new habit, we set an expectation for ourselves. Therefore, it's crucial to understand how we respond to expectations." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 8387ce6 | Recently I'd been intrigued to read about a self-publishing site, Lulu.com. According to the Web site, I could print a proper hardback book, complete with dust jacket, for less than thirty dollars. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 869c403 | Epicurus agreed, albeit in slightly more poetic phraseology: "Of all the things that wisdom provides for living one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 27f6d54 | Don't grieve limitations | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 1545f6e | Information, consequences, choice. Without lectures or micro-management or rescue. | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 51d2e15 | Our lives are in the space between Isaiah Berlin's "We are doomed to choose and every choice may entail an irreparable loss" and Borges's Garden of Forking Paths, where every choice produces a quantum explosion of alternate future." | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| 350641c | when dealing with a child who refuses to meet an expectation, it's important to try to understand the reason for that child's behavior. While a Rebel child might think, "You can't make me," a Questioner child may be waiting to hear a convincing argument about why meeting an expectation is worthwhile." -- | Gretchen Rubin | ||
| dc607cb | What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.. | everyday-choices everyday-life fitness habits-of-action make-healthy-habits prayer-life | Gretchen Rubin | |
| bb0453f | It's a Secret of Adulthood: Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy. | Gretchen Rubin |