Happier at (Quarantine) Home: Q&A with THE HAPPINESS PROJECT's Gretchen Rubin (from June 5, 2020)

we're grateful to best-selling and beloved author gretchen rubin for being with us today she's also i might brag one of the library's trustees she's the author of the essential book the happiness project happier at home and the four tendencies among other titles and the co-host of the happier podcast links to buy gretchen's books are available at the listing of this event on the library's website today she's going to share some of her wisdom about being happier at home and as many of us transition back into normal after being quarantined at home do add your questions in the chat and she'll address them in a bit thank you so much and now gretchen rubin hello everyone and thank you so much sarah no one is a bigger fan of the new york society library than i am so it's a great honor and a pleasure to be here today um before i launch into talking about you know how we can all be happier i really do want to take a moment to acknowledge the protests of the past weeks um on behalf of racial justice and in response to the death of george floyd brianna taylor ahmad arbory and so many other things um i this has been such a powerful and profound moment i think it's leading to a lot of soul-searching i know i've been doing a lot of soul searching and asking you know what am i doing in my everyday life to help my country live up to its most noble ideals this is a question that we should be thinking about all the time obviously um but i think now more than ever it's something that's on our minds and is shaping our actions in the future um now at a time like this it's easy to think i ask myself this question all the time is is it selfish for me to think about my own happiness is it trivial is it self-centered for me to even be thinking in those terms um but here's what the research shows and and i think common experience confirms this if you think about the people in your life in your own experience is that actually happier people are more interested in the problems of other people and they're more interested in trying to solve the problems of the world they give away more money they volunteer more time they're more likely to vote they make better leaders and better team members they're more likely to help out if a family member or a colleague or a friend needs a hand they're healthier they have healthier habits when we're unhappy it's easy to become isolated defensive and preoccupied with our own problems and so when we work to be happier in our own lives we actually strengthen ourselves to turn outward and to think about the problems of other people and the problems of the world and what we can do to help to bring about change so i guess if it is selfish to want to be happier we should be selfish if only for selfless reasons um so given that um what are some things that we can do as part of our ordinary lives to be happier healthier more productive and more creative um so i'm gonna talk about a bunch of different concrete things because i always love things to be concrete um so one of the things that we can do is to um live our values um and i think this again is something that we're all thinking about very much at this time um and so you know we all have our values but in the tumult of everyday life sometimes it's easy for days weeks months to slip by and we haven't really done enough to put those values into the world and that is an immense source of happiness is to feel like we are living up to our ideals for ourselves we are upholding our values in the world so um one thing i've uh i've thought about and done for many years is power hour power hour is pretty you know it's a small thing and it's the idea that you know things that can be done at any time are often done at no time and so what i do is i keep a running list of all those little nagging tasks that i just postpone you know week after week after week keep a list and then once a week for an hour i tackle them so this is like change that burned out light bulb you know figure out where my the misplaced hammer is uh look for that book that i've been looking for that somehow is on the wrong shelf um you know do these little tasks because over time they just sort of drain us and make us feel overwhelmed none of them is important on its own but kind of the mass of them make us feel drained so that's power hour but i was thinking that for today circumstances maybe it would be good to think of empower hour when you think of yourself as okay i'm going to set aside time every week an hour doesn't seem like much but putting it on the calendar is important because again things that are done at any time are often done at no time have an hour where you say i'm going to live up to my values so maybe i'm going to take steps to help people to register to vote maybe i'm going to research causes to decide where i want to donate my money maybe i'm going to educate myself about some important policy issue that i want to learn more about so for this one empower hour i'm going to take steps to put my values into the world um and just by putting it on the calendar um for a lot of us it makes it much more likely that it happens and once you get started often you keep going you don't limit yourself to an hour but an hour make sure that there's at least it gets it's uh it doesn't get pushed week after week after week so empower heart is kind of a transcendent thing um but then there are there's the things that are very very like grounded in our own body and i think the body is a great place um to begin because our physical experience is always going to color our emotional experience so we have to think about like well what am i doing to keep my body in good shape and the first thing i would say and you've heard it before because everybody's always talking about this but it needs repeating which is that we need to get enough sleep most adults need at least seven hours of sleep and it makes a huge difference to our focus our mood our immune function that everybody's so focused on now um the repair of the body in so many ways to get enough sleep now these days because of everything that's going on a lot of people have disrupted sleep they have trouble falling asleep or they wake up in the middle of the night with racing thoughts or they just get caught up in an infinite loop where they just are staying up later and later because the usual architecture of our days has been disrupted um so if this is you you might want to think about things like setting an alarm for bedtime you might have an alarm to wake up maybe you need an alarm to go to sleep uh getting ready for sleep well before you plan to go to bed so that when you're tired you're already in your you know in your pajamas and your teeth are brushed and you know like your face is washed so you can just go out go to bed when you're ready to go to bed um if you have racing thoughts in the middle of the night what research shows is that if you write those down that will often kind of release your mind um because the brain is going over and over information to make sure that you don't forget it if you write it down then it's memorialized and the mind can release it um also if you're having trouble sleeping you might get up for 20 minutes and just do some like quiet activity not watching tv not checking your email not checking the news but a lot of times if you get up and sort of move around then you can go back to sleep more easily also if you are having trouble sleeping a great thing to do and a great thing to do on its own and again you know it you've heard it a million times we need to exercise this is not you know training for the marathon this is movement this is maybe it's a 20-minute walk or you know just exercise um this for us of course is easier in new york city even today i think new yorkers we tend to walk more than some people in other parts of the country um but it's really really important exercise is like the magical elixir of life it both energizes us and calms us down it's really important again for that immune function that we're also focused on and mood and energy people sometimes think well i'm too tired to exercise but actually exercise tends to boost energy instead of depleting energy unless you're really exercising kind of at the outer limits of your of your capacity um and the other thing about exercise is that it helps us sleep people who exercise fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply so those two things work together another thing and this is um in a book that i'm working on now um that i think is really great is if you're feeling overwhelmed uh if you're feeling you know like you kind of are spinning out of control it's great to just really say to yourself okay i'm going to get grounded in my body now a lot of people get grounded in their body by focusing on their breath but i don't know about you but if i start thinking about my breath i start feeling like i'm suffocating it's like nothing interferes with my breathing more than focusing on my breath um but what i like is to tap into the sense of smell so i really smell a bottle of vanilla i really smell a grapefruit i really smell fresh towels and that makes me like takes me you cannot bookmark a smell you can't even keep experiencing it for more than just that fleeting moment so it's something that really takes you into your body right now um or your sense of touch maybe really sit down and and experience like the texture of a pillow or the texture of a plant leaf um there's something about really connecting with your body that i think can be um very grounding and very comforting now so there's the body there's our values another way to think about happiness is okay well what would you say the secret to happiness is and a key and maybe the key to happiness and ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists would agree about this is relationships to be happy we need to have enduring intimate bonds we need to feel like we belong we need to be able to confide we need to be able to get support and just as important for happiness we need to be able to give support again this is the idea of putting your values into the world giving support to others makes us happier too it's the whole do good feel good now some people criticize that because they think well it's not possible to be altruistic but i'm like this is one of the best things about human nature uh that people feel happier when they're doing good for other people um so that's something to think about in our relationships how can we do good for other people because that's gonna make them feel happier it's gonna make us feel happier too so some little concrete things you could do for your relationships one is just to try to signal warmth i think and i i see this in my neighborhood and i imagine you do too that i feel like people are really going out of their way to smile and to say hello now of course we can't see their smiles because they've got their masks on um but you can see people's faces change you can tell that they're smiling they're giving a little wave um to kind of create a greater sense of companionship and and and and neighborliness in this time i feel like i really appreciate it i go out with my dog barnaby several times a day and i really see that people are much more likely to just give a quiet hello than they usually do or just like a little acknowledgement and it does make everything feel so much warmer another thing is if you are if you are um safer at home with other people a nice thing to do is to really acknowledge when people come and go maybe not from the room but if somebody's like going out to walk the dog or you know drop a letter in the mailbox or something to really say hello and goodbye every time they come because sometimes when people come and go and no one even like looks up from their phone or their book to acknowledge it it starts to feel like nobody really is paying attention to you and so really acknowledging when people come and go is a great way to um create a more tender and affectionate atmosphere and one thing you know we need relationships but and everyone keeps saying like this isn't you know it's not social distancing it's physical distancing um but physical distancing is hard you know we're used to seeing other people we're used to being in person and um i think we all need to be taking advantage of what technology can offer us and i see many people doing it and that's why something like this is a great thing because we can't be in person but we can connect this way it's not the same as being in person and probably it's not as good as being in person but maybe some people can join who wouldn't otherwise be able to join and um it's it's a way to feel connected and i think what a lot of people are doing is they're really going out of their way to learn how to use new tools to adapt to new tools and then also what i see a lot of people doing sort of looking out for the people maybe for whom this doesn't come easily and making sure that they feel like they're being checked on and that someone's looking out for them and making sure that they're pulled into a network of social connection and information um because some people are kind of automatically networked up and they're in a million group texts and you know they're like part of this group and i've got three book clubs that are meeting by zoom but not everybody has that and so i think it's great that they're that people are really looking out for each other and making sure that um everyone's getting pulled into this um into this network um and then the final thing i would say and then we have some time for questions um which sarah will read um is uh to think about self-knowledge i mean you'd think oh nothing's easier than knowing myself because i just hang out with myself all day long but actually a lot of times we don't really know ourselves and when we set up our lives in a way that's tailored for us that reflects our own nature our own interests our own value our own temperament we're far more likely to be happier um and there's and they say there are two kinds of people in the world the kind of people who divide the world into two kinds of people and the kind of people who don't and i am going to be blue does and so i love finding distinctions um and a lot of times these distinctions can really help us show more compassion to ourselves and also show more compassion to other people so again if you are safer at home with a bunch of other people and you're spending a lot of time together in ways that you don't usually do you may be experiencing more conflict and sometimes understanding these distinctions makes conflicts makes these kinds of conflicts easier to manage so one is this is very obvious but i but some people kind of dismiss it but it's real and it's powerful is morning people and night people this is a real thing it's largely genetically determined and a function of age some people are just that they're more creative and productive and energetic later in the day and some people are morning people like me um and so if you're thinking about when to schedule something if you're thinking about like who handles breakfast and who handles dinner if you're thinking about when certain tasks should happen for yourself and for other people you want to take into account well are you a morning person or a night person because a lot of times you can distribute tasks to take advantage of people's natural energy levels also don't oppose your natural energy levels i think a lot of owls are told like you should get up early and you know the early bird catches the worm and if something's important to you you should get up and do it before work or whatever no because they can barely get out of bed you know it's time to get to work on time um if you are a night person you really want to schedule those things at a time when you're at your best um again there's all this research shows this is a real thing it's not that just some people stay up too late you know watching reruns of game of thrones no they're actually wired differently um another uh another difference that i think comes up a lot now that we're all um at home a lot is um simplicity lovers and abundance lovers so simplicity lovers are people like me we like empty shelves and bear counters and not much on the walls and not much going on you know one little vase with one little rosebud you know simple and then there are abundance lovers though and abundance lovers love profusion and choice and and collections and piles and unexpected juxtaposition and a lot going on and sometimes simplicity lovers will say something like a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind you should like we're gonna have a clean desk policy in this office well that's true for some people but it's not true for everyone abundance lovers thrive in that kind of in abundant environment so it's not that one person's right or one person's wrong or one person's like this is the more creative way or the more efficient way it's just people thrive in different circumstances so maybe we have to cooperate but we don't have to convince each other i'm right you're wrong or you're right and i'm wrong we could both be right for ourselves and then the final one that i want to mention is one that's dear to my heart which is the difference between abstainers and moderators and this is if you are uh facing a strong temptation um and one thing i'm hearing from a lot of people because i've done a lot of studies of habits is that for many people being the safer at home period has really uh caused them to do a lot more snacking um because they're just home and they're maybe anxious or uneasy and the food is right there um and so they're trying to manage their eating so that they can eat more healthfully so this has to do with a strong temptation so like i have a crazy sweet tooth um for abstainers it's easier to have none than it is to have a little bit um i can have no thin mint cookies or i can have a sleeve of thin mint cookies but i cannot have one thin mint cookie i can't have half a dish of ice cream i can't have half a brownie i can have none very easily but once i start i'm going to go all the way by contrast moderators are people who do better when they have a little bit of something or they have it sometimes you know they follow the 80 20 rule um these are the people and maybe you know people like this maybe you are a person like this where you're like i just have a bar find chocolate in my desk drawer and every day or two i just have one square that's all i wanted you get a little something for my sweet tooth i can't live like that for me 8 a.m i'm like oh my gosh like it's today it's my birthday the day i've had it's the weather like now later i have to have it i might as well eat the whole thing and just get it off my mind um and the thing is moderators and abstainers it's not that one person's right one person's wrong it's that um we just have different approaches but often we will tell each other that we're doing it wrong as an abstainer people say to me you shouldn't be so rigid you shouldn't demonize certain food you should learn how to manage yourself and just indulge in moderation and then i say to moderators why do you keep changing the rules on yourself why don't you just go cold turkey like why exhaust yourself with all these decisions just like just make a clean decision and let it go well moderation works for some people and abstaining works for some people now i can be a moderator when it comes to wine because i don't really like wine so i can have half a glass of wine whereas a friend i might said i can have no wine or i can have four glasses of wine i can't have half a glass of wine so this is really about strong temptation how you manage strong temptation but again you might be at home with somebody who's like well i don't understand why we just can't have ice cream in the freezer just have like a half a cup don't just like don't eat the whole thing and you're like oh my gosh i can't do that um because for some people it's just very hard to have a little bit so if one way isn't working for you try the other way so the final thing i would say and then again we'll have time for your questions is um i really do think that even in circumstances like we face today which really are circumstances that we've all we've always faced this is just bringing it to a head bringing it to our attention in a very important and significant way i really do think it's worth the time and the energy and the effort to to do what we can within our own lives and our own circumstances to be as healthy and happy and as productive and as creative as we can be um both for ourselves and our own happiness and also because it is true that when we're happier um we're more able to turn outward and to think about what we can do to make positive changes in the world so thank you very much and i look forward to continuing the conversation thank you so much fred was frantically scribbling down some tips there and i'm gonna pull my copies of happiness project and other uh books off the shelf and review because it's great stuff to keep in mind at this time so we have a couple of questions that have come up in the chat and then i have a few that have come in separately um so here's a pretty simple question but i'm sure it's something that's going on with a lot of us um a little bit of a that outer order intercom subject matter lots of people and families are now juggling masks and gloves and new constant use items that also need to be clean or kept separate have you had and your family discovered some good ways for keeping those things separate and being clear about which ones are clean and which ones are et cetera you know i think the key thing is to have a system and then to have everybody agree on a system which is not easy um and also you sort of have to form all these habits anew uh like how long did it take to form the habit of putting your keys away in the same place right but now we have all these habits um but i think it's important to say okay what what is the rule that we're all gonna stick to and if you break it okay fine but now here like let's re let's recommit to it what is a problem is when there's sort of the decision fatigue of well i think this but maybe that and you say this but maybe we're doing it this way well i feel uncomfortable because you're not doing that um also i heard an interview with kate bowler um and she made an uh a suggestion that i thought was really good especially now um when we're in a period where it used to be very clear like don't do this don't do that stay home like you know it was pretty clear now they're starting to be more nuanced and people are starting to split on what they think and that could be true in a household and that's certainly true kind of in uh in a city uh and across the country so one thing to you can do is to say once a week we will examine what is the research shows what it what's the government guidelines and we're going to decide what are our rules for this week and then we're not going to re we're not going to question them until next week because the decision fatigue of constantly should i shouldn't i is this okay is that okay can i do this can you do that it's very draining and so if you sort of say okay once a week we're gonna like look at it because there's so much information it's all changing so fast you know for a while i was like don't bother with mass now it's like don't go anywhere without a mask it's like okay if we look at it once a week we don't have to constantly juggle this um but we'll make a recent decision based on the best evidence that we have and then we're going to let that guide our actions and we're all going to agree what that looks like because we're going to talk about it um now this is easier said than done obviously um and it's probably going to get trickier going forward but i think that's that's what helps us to be very clear that kind of clarity makes it easier to act excellent so kind of jumping off of that um what silver linings have you found during this quarantine time could be grandiose or small scale um what positive things would you take away well you know that's a great question because i think that's something that all of us are asking like this is an experiment it's not an experiment we would have chosen it's not an experience we're happy about and nevertheless it's an opportunity to really learn and see like you know what what can we learn and gain from this now i think i'm like many people where i'm just like i have a college age daughter and of course i was devastated that she had to come back and like you know be away but for me it's been wonderful um my daughters both get along very well and so it's just been it's just been wonderful to have this family time um we've been playing a board game called uh ticket to ride um which is kind of in my mind oh yeah you've thumbs up all right uh usually i don't like games and so for me it's very exciting to have a game i like um and i think you know for the rest of our lives it's like we will remember this period it's because it's like ticket to ride um and so this family time has been great and just like you know i haven't seen my husband this much ever um you know um also traveling um i love to travel but in a way it's also very draining and so like i accidentally pulled up a boarding pass on my phone like i hit some app it's like it felt like something that i hadn't seen since high school you know i was like wow i forgot about like like uh travel size luggage and all that stuff um and um i do feel like uh i mean we're all frustrated with with video chat and we want to get back to in real life but it does seem like there's so many ways now that we can use technology in a way that we didn't realize um if you listen to happier podcast my co-host is my sister elizabeth and she's a type 1 diabetic and she lives in los angeles where of course it's a nightmare to get anywhere um and she was saying that this is going to be huge for her because she and her doctor have realized he always insisted that she come in in person and now they're realizing well she needs to come in like every third or fourth visit but really it's not necessary and this is this is and i talk to people who are therapists who are really realizing some people do better like they're less likely to cancel if they can do it this way because it's just so much logistically easier so there's all these gains in i think the telemedicine um i'm wondering i don't know people have like teenage or young adult children um but all these kids getting more sleep you know there's all this research about how children are sort of chronically underslept in schools you know speaking morning people and night people uh teenagers and young adults are very owlish and they're just like in in their in their it's just developmentally appropriate for them like i wonder if there's gonna be i'm sure there's people studying are there cognitive gains that are being gained by children and teenagers who are sleeping more and probably sleeping more in accordance with what their natural rhythm would be um so again it's nothing that we would have picked but i think that we're going to learn a lot um from this period because it it's such a dramatic shift um that it's going to make certain kinds of things very clear thank you very much uh that is a lot of silver linings actually it's it's great uh and as you say we wouldn't have wished this on anyone but embracing the positive aspects is is worthwhile in itself so um this next question i think is a little bit in the same direction how do you frame happiness when so many of the activities that have traditionally brought you happiness aren't available right now and may not be available in the near future i mean you talked a little bit about traveling what are some other things that well you know that is a really really important question i think a lot of people are asking that and um like one of the things is the summer right i think for a lot of people like the summer has all kinds of associations and a lot of those things aren't going to happen like your children aren't going to be going to summer camp and maybe you're not going to be taking the holiday that you've been looking forward to and maybe you're not going to go to the beach the way you did or if you do go to the beach it's not going to be the same beach or um you know you're going to do some kind of i don't want to i don't think the marathons go in the summer i know nothing about but the sports you know all the things that for many people going to the pool many of these things are going to be disrupted so i think the thing and i've been trying to do this myself is to sort of think like well what is the what are sort of some of the essential things that would make it feel like the summer for me um and so to try to capture that so maybe it's you know uh walking in the park and so you're like well i can walk in the park uh maybe it's you know last summer i had my summer of proust uh maybe you're like okay this summer i'm gonna read all of jane austen or whatever um uh to give it kind of a summer feeling um and then like with things like getting together with friends i mean it's funny with zoom because i think there was the zoom rush to zoom and then the zoom fatigue and now do people want to be on zoom do they not want to be on zoom are they sick of zoom it's like it's everybody's in a different place but to try to figure out ways to connect with people even if you can't like go out for happy hour meet for coffee or do whatever it you know or even just something like running into people on the street or you're doing drop off with your kids and so you see those it's just this easy low touch way of staying connected to people and then they're the people i've talked to so many people who are like i want to be alone in a crowd i want to be in a crowded coffee shop on my laptop or i want to be in the hornblower room and no i can't make a peep i can't talk to anybody i can't even bang on my keyboard but i feel the quiet presence of other people and that kind of companionable thing just right before all this well in 2020 at the beginning of 2020 i decided to do an experiment where i would go to the metropolitan museum every single day of the year and part of what i loved about it i realized once i couldn't go was just the quiet presence of other people just everybody minding their own business but everybody kind of interested in the same thing it was just like a quiet peaceful people from all over the world in this beautiful you know cavernous space and we miss that and so but again maybe this will help sharpen our appreciation for things that we take for granted because it's easy to say oh well who wants to be on a crowded bus but now i'm thinking oh my gosh i cannot wait to be on a credit bus i can't wait you know i can't wait for that i can't wait to like i can't get a seat in the hornblower room right that's going to feel great um so part of it is to realize like these things will come back in some way and we can appreciate them all the more and then try to figure out like how can we create the hack um to replace it in the meantime and just even thinking about the pleasant anticipation of some of those things that might not have been pleasantly anticipated before yeah i mean it'd be a powerful tool right there um thinking about what's essential for summer popsicles come to my mind we had someone in the chat who mentioned um what about theater opera ballet and symphony i'm not sure if you mean uh places you we can't be right now that you'd like to be i would also mention of course that a lot of that is streaming now where it was not before which is a different experience ah more the question from we miss those things now how do we deal with that when we don't have that to make us happy or help us be happy i mean it it really is very sad and especially being in new york city which is just like the heart of so many of these grand cultural institutions we i think we feel the pain of it maybe more than anywhere else in the world because we just like this is the seat of so many like wonderful cultural traditions like that just reading there was a new york times article and somebody said grand op you cannot have grand opera without crowds like that is the p you can't do it it's not the same and it isn't the same and there are either i and all these institutions are like really putting things online and making things available but it's not the same and they don't you know it isn't the same one thing i've been trying to do is to use this time to like educate myself more by like reading up on things because i'm not going and so maybe if you can't go to the opera you can't go to the symphony or something maybe this is the time to say like oh i really want to like kind of systematically get more familiar with a particular composer or something like that so that you feel like at least you're using this time to like so that you'll bring more of the experience once you're feeling it again now i think another thing and i mean all cultural institutions are thinking about this is like what does the future look like going forward given that they have missed this huge just this huge gap in their in their schedules and so i think that is also something that's worrying all of us which is you know what is what is the future of these institutions um so that's another thing that's adding to the uncertainty of this time and kind of the uneasiness of this time is how it's falling on individual people and businesses and also on some of the great cultural institutions of the world yeah very much so someone asks do you have any specific ideas or might say maybe a favorite idea about how to best serve others during this time um they're trying to figure out how best to help so that's a great question i wrote a post about it on my website gretchenrubin.com where i talked about sort of like what i was doing um and uh which seems like very little i mean it's very hard to feel like you're you're you know uh that what you're doing is proportionate um to what the the immensity of the circumstances um but we we have to begin by doing what we can do with our own lives um so just for what it's worth what i did was um i did some research and we talked about it as a family um about what organizations we wanted to donate to now this is not so easy because there's lots of organizations and of course you want to make wise choices and there are there are places like charity navigator and you know different ones that can help you choose wisely and fortunately right now there's been a ton of um articles written um looking at if you're interested in bail reform these are the organizations that are doing a great job if you want to do something locally these are the great this is the place if you want to like help minneapolis or whatever um so that you can really kind of drill down on what's important to you and give wisely because you know nobody wants to just and you know and sadly there are people who take advantage of this and you know create you know where it's not a good use of your time and your money and um what are the causes you believe in educate yourself and then give to them so that's what we did as a family for what it's worth we gave the braille project and the naacp uh legal defense and education fund but there's there in my post i post to i think it was on the on in the cut was um website which is like a new york magazine uh uh kind of uh vertical they had one that went through a lot of different ones and talking about kind of why you might pick one or the other i mean the other thing that i'm doing is i'm really trying to educate myself more and so i love to read um and when i i've been following very closely with society library it's going to start lending out books again because i'm a gigantic librarian and i've really decided that i am going to spend the summer at least really reading many more books about racial justice racial inequality the books by black authors and really you know which i do all the time um like nedia cora for like i'm my sister and i have an instagram live book club and we had already picked it oh yeah you're sarah she's right in your alley yeah yeah neddy okorafor is like yeah we share that kind of science fiction fantasy thing i know um so it's like but to highlight that to to really like educate myself learn more about what's going on and also then you know shine a spotlight on people whose work i admire and that i think is really important so that's something that that i want to do and i you know it's interesting um there was a report that the top 10 audiobooks uh of the last week top selling were all books that were like anti-racist books um and i imagine uh sarah it will be very interesting to see when the library opens to see i bet like how long the waitlists are going to get for certain books that everyone's dying to read um and somebody was saying like they tried to order uh the fire next time which is one of james baldwin's most famous books and they were like oh yeah that's like that's back ordered for months which is good in a way because it shows that many people are realizing like it's time to learn it's time to um really uh really do it and again it feels like oh that that's like not that much to do but it is something that we can do with our own lives and then i think from there maybe see other possibilities of like where we would want to engage and get involved yeah very much so um yes this is already showing in the library's uh you know ebooks and holds and so forth as well and we're very much hoping to encourage and build on that and build further awareness and encourage reading in the subject so you're gonna do one of your little tables by the by the uh the checkout i look forward to the lobby table being back now all right we all want the lobby table um so here's a um kind of specific question can you give some advice to families who are working on being happier together and which include a family member with a difference like autism or a learning disability or an illness or physical disability um just kind of keeping everybody participating and doing as well as possible during times of transition during times of uncertainty that is that's a really important question and i think it really comes down to this idea of relationships and also a feeling of safety and security and that people can be counted on um i think that in the end if you feel like someone loves you and you can count on that um it covers a lot of mistakes and it covers a lot of losing your temper or things not going right um i heard a story a friend of mine was telling me how um so she's working from home and she's got an older child who um i forgot what grade he's in and she has a younger child who has special needs and so in the morning she was spending much more time with her son who had special needs because it was like hard to get on the zoom and you know all this stuff that everybody has to fuss with um but then at some point when it was getting to be around lunchtime she would uh text her older son and say what do you want for lunch is there anything in particular you're in the mood for and then she'd go fix lunch and then when he was done with his class and they were all done they'd eat lunch together she didn't really think anything of it was one of those habits that you fall into by default you don't even realize you're creating a habit that you're creating expectations on other people it just like seems like the easy obvious thing to do and before you know it um you've got to have it so one day she pulled a muscle in her back and she said she was just an agony she could hardly move so she's there with her younger son and then she's like oh my gosh okay i'm just going to let them fend for themselves for lunch like they're big enough they can deal with it make make a peanut butter sandwich and um you know i i just i just need to lie down and her son was furious furious with her and was like i can't believe it like i'm so hungry there's no and i thought oh my gosh like is she going to be angry at him is she going to be like are you so spoiled are you so so so self-centered and so lazy that you cannot make yourself a peanut butter sandwich but i'm like in so much pain but my friend was so much wiser and she said oh i understand it's like it's these little gestures that make us feel cared for and taken care of and he just needed to know that i was like hey honey what do you want for lunch today that's all he needed and he counted on it and i didn't even know he was counting on it and i thought you know that is just like but in the end it's like it's fine because now she gets it and he gets it and because that love and that consistency is there um so i think that's what goes a long way um especially when there's so much uncertainty and anxiety in the world and everybody can do that seems to me the the little gestures you know everybody in whatever situation in the in the family can do that yeah yeah to try to do that yeah um good well we're gonna kind of move towards wrapping up we've got a couple more questions uh if that's good with you um can you sneak us a little bit more information about the upcoming book about the senses yes and if anybody has any suggestions i'm like i love getting suggestions um so it's a book about how to get to the mind through the body um because a lot of times you can minister to the spirit through the body and so and i'm one of these people who's just like constantly up in my head and very distracted and so i really wanted to ground myself in my in my senses so it's about the sense of smell which i've been obsessed with for a long time color and sight which i love part of this is that i'm going to the metropolitan museum every day and i'll be back there i think july 15th is the day um pretty soon um and then uh and then kind of i have my own senses that i add to that like kindergarten five which is people time uh pattern and symbol which you know i make my own argument for that um so it's really just an exploration it's everything from like why ketchup is amazing like don't even get me started about like why ketchup is amazing um and then and then things like the power of symbol to you know transform our experience um and i'm i just love it because especially in a time where it's easy to just kind of spin out it just brings me back um into my physical experience and um so it's a very great pleasure uh to work on that um and uh like every book that i write i'm like it's never gonna be this good again this is this is it like nothing's gonna be as fascinating as this subject and then i and then i'm like no this one's this is good so anyway any any resources that people i get like the world is my research assistant people are like oh there's a podcast episode about perfume or you know there's this great book called the secret life of color like yes kasha claire it's my favorite book on color yeah so i'm having a lot of fun are we good yeah well we're looking forward to that one a lot um any quicker favorite tip about what to do when you feel blocked like you're trying to read something or you're trying to write something or you're trying to move on to the next big thing in life even just ways to approach that well they're sort of like the big and the small so the big is a lot of times when people feel blocked like if they say they have writer's block or it's like i can meet peop like my promises to other people but i'm having trouble keeping promises to myself if it's that kind of frustration or you feel like i have no time for for self-care my own priorities then i always think that it's maybe is an issue of outer accountability and so i have my whole i have a whole personality framework that i won't take the time to explain now um called the four tendencies which divides people into upholders questioners obligers and rebels and this is a particular issue for obligers but anybody can experience this but um all i'll say is if you want to learn more about it um you can take a quiz at quiz.gretchenruben.com and we'll tell you what you are and give you a little report kind of overview about how you might think about it and then there's tons of resources on my site if you want to if it brings if it rings true to you if you're like oh when i was in tracting when i was in high school i was on the track team i never missed track practice so why can't i go running now i'm like okay you're an obliger okay um so that can be a way that people will feel blocked or frustrated but then there's another kind of thing which i think is happening right now which is where people just like they can't get their head in the game it's like i just can't focus so if you're getting to that where you feel like i can't transition from one part of life to another part of life and i can't settle into something the way i once did one thing you might think about is like transitional tasks because you know just like we don't expect little kids to go from like playing legos and to like lying in bed and going to sleep they need transitions we also need transitions so a transition that i really like is just cleaning up because i do outer order contributes to inner column for me so if you say okay i'm going to take 10 minutes and just like clean up my office and like just like make create physical order maybe i'm going to go into the kitchen and just kind of put dishes in the dishwasher that can be kind of settling it can help kind of calm you to create that outer order also if it's like hard to go from family life to work life say um to maybe give yourself an intermediate task like not to jump into something that's like very high and intellectually demanding but to do something like maybe you read industry newsletters or maybe you need to review something for typos or something where it's related to work so it's stepping you into that work part of your mind but it's not you're not asking yourself to like really focus because i think right now especially people are finding it hard to switch um especially if you often use physical location as a way to create these boundaries at work i think about work then in my commute i kind of have that buffer and then at home i think about home well that's kind of been breaking down anyway because of technology and email and such i mean i think a lot of people miss the old buffers that we used to have but now there is no buffer and um it can be really unsettling to be like doing a zoom call and your like three-year-old is wandering by we're all used to it now we all find it charming but it's still it's kind of unsettling and it can it can mess with your head um so i'm a big fan of transitions i think that that can really help if people are fine finding it hard to sort of move forward excellent i got one more question and it's just a happy question i think um one sees the phrase a lot somebody's in their happy place or they need to go to their happy place and we like to think that that's libraries yes um any thoughts about that phrase or about libraries if you like no absolutely and i think it's a great idea to have a happy place and to just be someplace where you know if you go you can count on it i think for some people it's like their favorite coffee shop where they love the music and they love the smell and they love the coffee um and definitely i absolutely feel like libraries are my happy place that's been true ever since i was little um i grew up in kansas city missouri and we had this cool library that had like very seventies like this two two-story glass tube with water bubbling in it and um it was like downstairs was the children and then i remember when i used to go upstairs so the adult it was so exciting um in college and in law school i spent hours and hours in the library i met my husband my husband had the carol behind me in law school that's how i met him um and then new york society library it's like and it's like different moods like sometimes i like the little desk that's in the corner of the fiction section i think it's the p it's the f's right i think i am right sit right in front of penelope fitzgerald or something um and then there's the big room where you can work with everybody and then you know it's just uh it just and then all those books all this all that possibility it's just really exciting yeah so to me there's nothing nothing is happier than a library because it just just holds so much promise i like to just look at the titles i will check out a book because i like to title or i like the cover um what sarah what was the name was it phyllis rose who wrote the book where she just read one shelf for the book shelf yes it's called the shelf it's a terrific read it's really insane yeah yeah where she's just like i'm just gonna read this one shelf and like see what it reveals i was like oh my gosh that sounds like so so fun um yes so i and i know that the library needs our support so um everybody like like we we can't wait to get back there um so we got to make sure it stayed strong thank you so much gretchen for your words of support but thank you so much for this uh really lovely event i personally feel happier having been here and i hope but i think we're all taking away is something large or small that we can do to improve life and the lives of others as well so thank you so much uh i'm going to close this down now but um your everyone listening is welcome to email events at nysocialide.org let us know your feedback on this event let us know what else you'd like to see in the future thank you so much bye everyone

Channel: NYSociety Library

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Id: 045eac2iiJc

Length: 45min 55sec (2755 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 18 2020