The Happiness Manifesto
In her book, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin includes her Happiness Manifesto—a short statement that sums up her most important conclusions about happiness.
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To be happy, you need to consider feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, and an atmosphere of growth.
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One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
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The days are long, but the years are short.
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You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
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Your body matters.
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Happiness is other people.
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Think about yourself so you can forget yourself.
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“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” —G. K. Chesterton
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What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa.
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Best is good, better is best.
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Outer order contributes to inner calm.
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Happiness comes not from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have.
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You can choose what you do, but you can’t choose what you like to do.
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You manage what you measure.
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“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” —Robert Louis Stevenson
Writing your own manifesto can be a great exercise to clarify your thinking when starting any endeavor—and it’s also a creative, absorbing process. Read Gretchen Rubin's Habits Manifesto for more inspiration. What would you include in your own Happiness Manifesto?