“Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” -Aeschylus
Whenever I go back and re-listen to one of my podcast interviews, I always discover elements of the conversation I didn’t recall.
Upon revisiting this 2025 conversation with best-selling author Gretchen Rubin, I of course remembered that she is a warrior for happiness and the practices that help her huge readership attain it.
But listening again, I was struck by how cool Gretchen is. Not “cool” in a biker-jacket / beat poetry / clove cigarette way, but in the “I know who I am, what I’m committed to, and how I can add value to the world” way.
I don’t claim to know Gretchen, but it seems logical to me that this self-awareness is a by-product of the kind of work she evangelizes.
And it is work. As Aeschylus advised in the quote above, happiness is always there if we choose it, but only if—in the hard times—we are willing to get off the couch or smile through the pain.
In times like these, Gretchen’s writing can help us find a path through the noise and, as she describes it, “identify ways we can take happiness from the transcendent to the concrete.”
A great way to start that process is to listen (or re-listen) to this episode and take her happiness quiz here. You can also find many more applicable insights on Gretchen’s Substack, Secrets of Adulthood.
Remember, happiness is growth—keep growing!
Some of my favorite quotes (and a couple of clips)
On Process v. Outcomes (07:50)
One of my 12 my personal commandments of happiness is to enjoy the process. Because, the fact is, if you enjoy the process, you don’t care as much about the outcome. Still you might really want to have a positive outcome, but if you enjoy the process, if it doesn’t work out the way you want, it’s not as bitter.
Do actions follow feelings or vice versa? (37:20)
We think that actions follow feelings, but to a great degree feelings follow actions. And so if you want to change your emotional state, it’s often by changing your conscious thoughts and actions—that’s often a good way to get into your emotional state. So if you’re feeling tired, if you act with energy you’re gonna start to feel more energetic. Or if you’re feeling shy, if you act you push yourself to act friendly, you’ll feel more friendly. Yeah, that’s fake until you feel it. That’s not “be inauthentic and present a totally imposter false sense to the world and then that somehow will become your truth.” That’s more about when people want to change their own emotional state, when they’re like, “I don’t want to feel this way.” It’s “okay, I have to stand up in front of an audience and I don’t feel like doing it.” It’s like, okay, well, stand up straighter, act with more energy. Command the room.
On money and happiness (41:20)
Money may not buy happiness, but it buys many things that do contribute mightily to happiness (Paul: Or eliminate unhappiness.) Exactly right. A lot of it, and that’s an excellent point in some ways. Money is like health where if you have it, you never think about it. But if you don’t have it, it’s really going to pull you down. (Paul: You’re thinking about it before you brush your teeth in the morning.) Right. So the lack of it will pull you down very much. But having it is very easy to take it for granted.
How to think about happiness (45:30)
If you’re thinking about how to make your life happier, you should think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right in an atmosphere of growth.
The importance of growth (47:25)
You want to feel like you’re growing. We want to feel like we’re making progress, like we’re fixing things, we’re learning things, we’re gaining skills, we’re putting something into the world.
Is happiness a choice? (52:03)
It always confuses me when people say that happiness is a choice. I just don’t understand what they mean by that. Clearly for people, it’s very meaningful because people say that to me, it just sort of doesn’t make sense, but this idea that it requires effort—that you would do things deliberately, thinking this is gonna make me … I’m gonna tackle ‘Feeling Good / Feeling Bad / Feeling Right in An Atmosphere of Growth by doing things with my conscious thoughts and actions — I completely agree. It does take effort.
Reasonably Happy is a podcast hosted by me, comedian Paul Ollinger, featuring conversations that explore the connection between success and happiness. From academics to athletes and from pastors to porn stars, I talk to some pretty amazing people.
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