Gretchen Rubin is a Diva

I've been thinking a lot about happiness lately. This is not surprising or really very interesting to anyone who knows me; I'd say the one theme of my life has been looking for ways to be happier. I take it for granted that this is a worthy endeavor, to the point that I am constantly shocked when I discover that this is not what someone else is also most interested in as a subject for personal study. Partly, I guess I take it for granted because I actually have academic credentials when it comes to studying happiness (two degrees in philosophy) and so for a long period of my life, studying happiness was kind of my job. But also, I've just always felt a duty to be happy. I long ago got over feeling guilty or uncomfortable about my good fortune in life; I am not responsible for having been born in a stable, well-off country to stable, well-off people. But I when I gave up feeling guilty, it was because I also accepted responsibility for at least not squandering that good fortune. I sometimes imagine having a conversation with a woman my age in some remote, impoverished place in India or Africa, and I ask this woman whether she's mad at me or resentful that I have more than she does, simply though luck of birth (it's a daydream, I am allowed to be gauche). And I imagine that she says, no of course not -- but just don't whine and complain, at least make an effort to appreciate what you've got. And so I feel a compunction to try to be happy, try to cause a net increase in happiness in the world by at least not fostering negativity.

But with all this passion to pursue happiness, it often eludes me. Some of this is also my undeserved inheritance: I come from a line of melancholy people, prone to depression and addiction, and some of these people helped rear me so it makes sense that I am by nature a reserved, introspective person, prone to perfectionism and self-criticism. Also, I've had some unlucky experiences in my life, the loss of loved ones, a miscarriage, a thwarted adoption, the plague of migraines. I think because of these traits and exeriences, I seek happiness not only as a moral imperative but also as a lifeline. I need happiness to counter my pessimistic, anxiety-prone nature.

And so we come to Gretchen Rubin. The woman is not really a diva, of course; just the opposite. I am simply overcome with jealousy that she wrote the book The Happiness Project and I didn't. Reading her book, I often feel like I am reading my own thoughts -- we not only have some of the same reflections, we even have similar writing styles. I don't relate to everything she writes; in fact, my copy of the paperback is peppered with penciled notes (NO, that is not what Mill meant, question marks as to how watching your team progress to the Super Bowl could be a wise choice as a passion when it is hardly an inevitability, no matter how much time you personally spend on it...) and I think there are some fundamental differences between our personalities and circumstances. But it is remarkable how alike we seem to be. Most of my underlining is to remember a passage or act on an idea.

Like the "write a novel in one month" idea. This idea terrifies me -- if I say I am going to do something, I HAVE to do it, part of my perfectionism I suppose -- so I am reluctant to embrace it. But it is definitely intriguing because it would force one of my theories about myself into the open. I have lately been wondering whether or not I am a writer. That is, I find it hard to feel the right to call myself something if I am not actively working toward it. I don't call myself an actor, no matter how passionate I used to be about that or how much experience I have (not all that much, actually, but what I do have looms large in my own mind) because I don't currently act and have no plans to act in the future. But in my heart, I think of myself as a writer because that is what I yearn to be, and have yearned to be since childhood. In the spirit of the The Happiness Project (but again, also in the spirit of my own quest for truth and happiness, which has been going on my whole life) I have started wondering WHY. Does writing make me happy? If so, why don't I spend more time doing it? Why does the idea of setting out to develop my multiplicity of ideas for fiction and memoir make me groan with dread? Why do I feel so disappointed in myself that I am not working on a novel right now? What drives me to want to write -- mostly arrogance? Narcissism? The hope of immortality? Do I just want to have some way to describe myself at my 20th reunion other than "mother, lawyer, wife"? Should I be disciplining myself to write, or is my feeling that I need to be writing just another symptom of my perfectionism and self-expectations (i.e., don't I already have quite a bit on my plate being a lawyer, wife, mother, friend, sister, neighbor, and what's wrong with that being all of it, anyway, and shouldn't I give myself a break and let that be enough for now?...)? And on and on, as anyone who has been patient enough to read my blog consistently will recall.

I guess that is why I am intrigued by the idea of the write-a-novel-in-a-month challenge. It turns a neurotic self-immolating thought process into a quirky goal, like the way I feel when my friends tell me they are going to train for a marathon or learn to make their own pasta. Really? Weird, but whatever works for you, best of luck, let me know if I can help. I don't suddenly think of them as "my friend the marathoner" or, "my friend the pasta chef" - I just admire them for their interest and commitment in something special to them, and wish them well. Doing this challenge might make me feel less personal angst, less in identity-crisis-land about the question, "Am I a writer?" And maybe it would force me to find out if I actually like writing. And if not, maybe I can let go of that goal, and all the personal baggage it seems to be dragging with it. Or maybe I can become a diva, like Gretchen Rubin.