Good Morning Sunshine

I was excited this morning to find the two blogs I follow most closely collide over my favorite subject: Penelope Trunk gave a critique of Gretchen Rubin’s recent book “The Happiness Project".

Nothing in Penelope’s post was too revolutionary – happiness is contagious and being actively aware of and interested in your own happiness increases happiness – but it did spark an interesting debate: are being interested in your life and being happy with your life mutually exclusive?

Penelope says it is; people are drawn toward either happiness or interestingness at the expense of the other.

I disagree, as evidenced by the disparate subjects of my two favorite blogs (happiness; intentionally provocative career advice). It all boils down to one’s definition of happiness.

I can see how the two could be mutually exclusive if you define happiness as contentment. You have a comfortable, relatively happy life in Boston but you get antsy and move to another country because you want to experience new things. Once you arrive there, you meet many interesting people whom you never would have met had you stayed in Boston, see places you never knew existed, and get a kick out of the bizarre language, food, and customs. At the same time, you decidedly are not content. You accidentally shoplift. You have superficial relationships with your coworkers. You are homesick.

But if your definition of happiness permits being uncomfortable and confused, then you still can be happy. Although not necessarily content.

Many people admit in retrospect they were happiest during a journey to achieve a goal. And I would think journeys are interesting - as long as they are to pursue something you care about.

Perhaps this is all rationalization about choices I have made, but it seems very dangerous to think life cannot be both happy and interesting.

And for the record, this is my third favorite blog. So perhaps I shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from my blog preferences.