On Being Happy

16. Sep, 2006 6 Comments

Today’s my 39th birthday. I had a wonderful day hanging out with my wife, the kids and the neighbors. And tomorrow my family’s coming by to spend the day.

I also don’t normally blog on the weekends, but I just found a blog that I just have to share. Via Steve Lacey who I found through an extremely unlikely set of coincidences, I discovered Gretchin Rubin. Steve linked to a post on her blog titled Tips for being a more light-hearted parent.

Wow. What a wonderful collection of advice. Tip #7 is particularly good:

Most messages to kids are negative: “stop,” “don’t,” “no.” So I try to cast my answers as “yes.” “Yes, we’ll go as soon as you’ve finished eating,” not “We’re not leaving until you’ve finished eating.” It’s not easy to remember to do this, but I’m trying.

As I read her tips, and some other entries on her blog (which is a year-long diary of her quest to become happier) I instantly became a fan. This is excellent writing, and great advice. Her portrayal of her family as characters (Big Girl, Little Girl, and Big Man) works incredibly well.

While I’m jealous of people who write so much better than I do, it’s also something to aspire to. Go take a look. You won’t regret it.

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6 Responses to “On Being Happy”

  1. Tomas Restrepo 17. Sep, 2006 at 5:53 am

    Hey, congratulations John!

  2. Sam Gentile 17. Sep, 2006 at 5:54 am

    Happy Birthday John! Give me a call sometime and we’ll catch up. Thanks for the great pointer!

  3. Jason Bock 18. Sep, 2006 at 5:42 am

    It’s amazing how attitude affects children. Sometimes we have to give Hayden a time-out or we have to be firm with him, but most of time simply encouraging him to do something else (or distracting him away from whatever is annoying him (and us ;) ) makes a big difference.

  4. Josh 18. Sep, 2006 at 7:40 am

    Happy Birthday John!

  5. Gretchen Rubin 19. Sep, 2006 at 6:18 am

    Hello John Lam! Thanks so much for your extremely nice words about my blog, The Happiness Project. You’ve made me very happy! I’m so pleased that now I’ve discovered YOUR site, am now going to poke around to see what I can find — so much here. Hope you had a great birthday! Gretchen Rubin

  6. Jared Nuzzolillo 19. Sep, 2006 at 8:50 am

    Hello John. Happy birthday, and congratulations on your progress with RubyCLR. Thanks for all of your hard work getting ruby and .net to play together nicely.