← Happier with Gretchen Rubin
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
More Happier: James Taylor, Unrealistic Expectations & Do You Love to Provision?
00:26:07
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- [00:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Listen, Whole Foods Market is a great place to get everything that we need for a fantastic summer barbecue. They have the chicken thighs, the ground beef. We love to have, salmon burgers, uncured hot dogs. Plus there's all the other things that you love for summer barbecue. The ice cream, the tortilla chips, the salsas, salad kits. You can get it all at Whole Foods Market.
- [00:25]
Elizabeth Craft
And look for hundreds of yellow low price signs that help you save without compromising the quality you expect from Whole Foods Market. There are so many ways to save on summer grilling favorites at Whole Foods Market.
- [00:40]
Unknown
Guess what? Discover is accepted at 99% of the places that take credit cards nationwide. You heard right, 99%. If you don't think so, maybe it's time to face facts. You're stuck in the past. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com CreditCard.
- [00:58]
Elizabeth Craft
Lemonade.
- [01:08]
Gretchen Rubin
Hello, we're here for More Happier, a podcast where we talk about ways to get happier. Join us for some weekend listening with a looser vibe. Hey, Elizabeth.
- [01:18]
Elizabeth Craft
Hi Gretchen.
- [01:19]
Gretchen Rubin
Today we'll talk about an observation about expectations that I've been thinking about lately. And we will consider a second question along the lines of the question, do you love to feed? But first, something making us happier. Elizabeth, what's making you happier?
- [01:35]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, Gretch, my recent James Taylor concert that I went to is making me happier. So Sarah got for Mother's Day a ticket to see James Taylor at the Santa Barbara bowl, which is an outdoor concert venue in Santa Barbara that I've always wanted to go to. So I got a ticket to go with her and we went and just had the best time. And I have to say I've Talked about how 2025 is going to be my summer of yacht rock. I decided to default to yacht rock all summer to put myself in a summer mood. James Taylor is high on the list of yacht rock artists.
- [02:18]
Gretchen Rubin
Uh huh.
- [02:19]
Elizabeth Craft
So it turned out to be this perfect thing of kicking off my Yacht Rock summer with James Taylor.
- [02:25]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, he's just, I mean, iconic. It must have just been so exciting to see him in performance.
- [02:31]
Elizabeth Craft
Yeah, he was so great. It was such a just fantastic concert. He sounded terrific. His backup singers were amazing, including his son, which was fun. He sang a duet with his son. Always loved to see, you know, the kids on stage. Also, I should mention the Santa Barbara bowl, if you ever get a chance to go, is so great. It's less than 5,000 seats, I believe, and you can actually see the ocean.
- [02:59]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh my gosh.
- [03:00]
Elizabeth Craft
From probably any seat in the house. Oh, yeah. So it's just a fun night.
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Gretchen Rubin
Uh huh. What's your favorite James Taylor song?
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Elizabeth Craft
Steamroller. Which he sang?
- [03:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [03:10]
Elizabeth Craft
How about you?
- [03:11]
Gretchen Rubin
I don't know. I'd have to go through and listen. He's got so many amazing songs. This is putting me in the. In the mood to go listen to a bunch of James Taylor. I will report back on my favorite song.
- [03:20]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, Gretch, I remember you made a mixtape once in high school that had Mexico on it.
- [03:25]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh, I love that song. Yeah. Gosh, you have a good memory. That's right.
- [03:30]
Elizabeth Craft
What about you, Gretch? What's making you happier?
- [03:32]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, we have our puppy, Taffy. And I have to say, it's making me happier that we're sort of learning her patterns, her ways, her tells. And I think she's learning our patterns, our ways, our tells. She clearly now knows the sign of the elevator door shutting and that that means that somebody's probably coming in. So she'll look expectantly. And now I know if she gets nippy in a certain kind of way, it means she needs to go outside. We're getting a sense of when she's gonna be thirsty and when she's gonna be sleepy and. And everything is just getting easier because at the beginning, it's all just like, oh, my gosh, I have no idea what's going on. I mean, you could see that she felt that way and we felt that way, and she's getting more used to Barnaby. Barnaby's getting more used to her. So it's just that everything is getting easier as we're settling in. And so at the beginning, it was very overwhelming, but already I'm feeling like, okay, this is getting easier to manage and the fun is really there. And it doesn't feel quite as overwhelming.
- [04:26]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, Gretchen, I have a question. Is she old enough that you can tell how her personality is different from Barbara Barnaby's, or does she still just seem puppy?
- [04:35]
Gretchen Rubin
She still just seems puppy. I don't have a sense of it yet. That's a good question. We should start paying attention to that. Yeah, they both love treats. I will say that if they think that there's an opportunity to have a treat, they will both come a running. In fact, Barnaby, we have a treat bag, you know, because you gotta reinforce constantly when you're trying to get them used to going outside. So Barnaby, I had it up on a counter, but it's got a strap. And Barnaby somehow got the strap in his mouth, dragged it off, and then ate every treat in the bag and it was magnetically closed. He must have, like slid his tongue in three inches and then like slowly pulled him out. I heard this strange scrunching sound. After a minute I was like, what is that strange scrunching sound? I was like, okay, Barnaby has figured out this is where to get the treats and I am bigger, I'm faster, and I'm going to get this whole bag to myself. And he did. So now we know. Put the treat bag up high because he's figured that out.
- [05:28]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, I have yet to meet a dog who does not love treats.
- [05:32]
Gretchen Rubin
These two are part of that. But I have something else that's making me happy. I am super excited to be participating in the Mid Year Reset Challenge on Insight Timer. Insight Timer is a big meditation and mental health app. And each day in June you will find a free five minute practice to help you pause and consider how the year's been going. I'm doing a session. My session is on June 12th and it explores the concept of drift. That is when we make a decision by not deciding. So you can join free on the Insight Timer app and you can tune in on June 12th for my five minute guided session. You can just search Insight Timer in the App Store or Google Play to download and join the challenge today. Super fun.
- [06:14]
Elizabeth Craft
Oh yay. I love Insight Timer. Great. All right, Gretch, coming up, there's something you've been meaning to ask me. But first, this break.
- [06:33]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Hey, Julia, Louis Dreyfus here. If you listen to me on my Wiser Than Me podcast, you probably already know that I'm an investor and an evangelist for the Mill Food recycler. There are a lot of reasons to love mill, but for me, it's all about the impact. Keeping food out of the garbage is one of the most powerful things we can do to help the planet every single day. We're talking banana peeling, carrot tops, old takeout. When that stuff heads to the landfill, it becomes a huge driver of climate change. If you already compost, great. But of course there's the smell, the flies, the running to the curb every day with a little leaking compost bag made of cornstarch. That's where mill comes in. It makes keeping food out of the trash as easy as dropping it in. It can handle nearly anything from a turkey carcass to like 20 avocado pits. It works automatically while you sleep. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never, ever smells. Mill makes dry, nutrient rich grounds that you can use in your garden. Add to your compost feed to your chickens or mill can get them back to a small farm for you, but you kind of have to live with mill to really get it. And that's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer.
- [07:47]
Elizabeth Craft
Crutch. We talk all the time about how important it is to get a good night's sleep. Well, I think I have figured out the hack to getting my perfect night's sleep. And it starts with my adjustable pillows from Coop Sleep Goods. I have the Eden adjustable, which keeps me cool and I absolutely love it. Gretchen. Literally, when I go to sleep at night and I put my head on that pillow, I think about how much I love this pillow. It's taken the place. I used to have two pillows that I didn't like. Now I have one pillow that I love.
- [08:21]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, after all, we spend a third of our lives in bed. So it really helps to get a pillow that's customized. Coop Sleep Goods has a sleep quiz that makes it very easy for listeners to find the perfect pillow for them. Visit coopsleepgoods.com happier to get 20% off your first order. That's c o o p sleepgoods.com happy happier.
- [08:47]
Elizabeth Craft
All right, Gretchen, we are back. There's something you've been meaning to ask me.
- [08:51]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay. This is something that has been on my mind and I just want to hear what your thoughts are. Okay. One of the things that you often read in discussions of marriages is people will say the thing about marriage today is that people have very, very high expectations of marriage. It used to be like way back that marriage was really, it was a financial arrangement. It was arrangement among families. It wasn't considered to be like soulmates joining. It was much practical considerations. But these days, people have very, very high expectations of marriage. You're supposed to have somebody who's your best friend and your coach and your cheerleader and somebody who's always on your side and your romantic partner. And so the discussion around it is, oh, we have these unrealistically high expectations of marriage. And that's why people have a lot of dissatisfactions in marriage. And we ask too much. So I'm not saying that I agree or disagree. I'm just saying I often see that argument made. Do you agree, Elizabeth? Have you often seen that argument?
- [09:45]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes.
- [09:46]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay.
- [09:46]
Elizabeth Craft
Absolutely.
- [09:47]
Gretchen Rubin
This is like a thing that people are talking. Then it occurred to me, I wonder if that is actually true in many, many areas. Not marriage. Cause I was reading something about family estrangement and talking about Family relationships. And I thought, well, you know, maybe it is that people really are expecting a lot more from their family members than they did in the past. And then I was thinking, well, what about work? I think people are really are expecting a lot from the workplace and from their boss and their coworkers. Eleanor is in college, and I think what people are expecting from the college experience, from friends, what we think, maybe partly we have very high expectations. And you could say, well, it's good to have high expectations, but we don't want to have expectations that are so high that we set ourself up for disappointment. Or when we interpret a situation that in other times might have been seen as acceptable, as really hurtful or really someone letting us down. Because I think sometimes. Sometimes we let people down very obviously, but then I think sometimes we don't even know that we're letting somebody down because we don't know that something's being expected of us. And that, again, gets to why we need to communicate. Because when we don't know what's expected of us, it's very easy for things to go wrong. But do you know what I mean about. This is all sort of inchoate in my mind, but it's just this idea of, like, maybe we're asking too much of every aspect of our lives.
- [11:08]
Elizabeth Craft
I think you're right. I hadn't thought about this at all, but I absolutely think you're right. It's reminding me of a letter we got recently. I think it was about friendship and expecting a lot from friends. And, you know, you and I pointed out maybe you're expecting too much.
- [11:25]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [11:26]
Elizabeth Craft
Because people do have a really high bar now for everything. I also think this could really help with work satisfaction. You mentioned in something you wrote that you prefer, for instance, the term enthusiasm to passion. Yeah. Because a passion really suggests you have to really love something that you're doing in terms of work.
- [11:48]
Gretchen Rubin
A total commitment.
- [11:49]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. But enthusiasm is like, I enjoy, enjoy this. And I think that's really a smart approach. Sometimes with work, I'm just happy when I get a paycheck. I'm glad that even just getting a paycheck makes me happy because that really lowers the bar on satisfaction. Right. But if you're only doing something for the love of it, well, then the bar is higher.
- [12:17]
Gretchen Rubin
Right.
- [12:18]
Elizabeth Craft
So lowering the bar in general for everything would make all of us more satisfied.
- [12:24]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, it's one of these things where there's a tension, because on the one hand, you want to aim high, you want to ask for a lot and get a lot and strive for, you know, a lot of satisfaction. But it is true that if your expectations are too high, and I think of, you know, we just recently had Mother's Day and I was hearing some conversation about Mother's Day and I think Mother's Day is one of these holidays where in some families it's a very, very big deal. There's like a very clear tradition and this is what is happening. And then in other famil, they might not even mention it. Or maybe you would just get a text where it's like, happy Mother's Day or whatever. But this is the kind of thing where people can really get their feelings hurt if they have an expectation of how other people would behave. But it's easy not to convey those expectations. And here's the thing that I've noticed is that sometimes people will try to insulate themselves from pain by saying they don't care about something. They'll be like, that's not a big deal to me. But actually what they're hoping is that people will still go ahead and make a big deal of it. But in my observation, if you say to people, I don't care about this, this is a made up holiday, doesn't matter to me. If we celebrate Mother's Day, then people will probably be like, okay, she doesn't care about Mother's Day. I'm not gonna go out of my way to do anything. Like you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Now that's a very obvious case where you are sending the wrong message. But I think sometimes it's not that clear. You might think, well, everybody else's parents do xyz, right? You might not even be consciously thinking that, but you're subconsciously thinking that. I think there's lot going on here. So I just am beginning to think about it. But it did. Just in hearing people's conversations, it does seem like sometimes things are so loaded, they're loaded beyond what they can bear.
- [14:03]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. And Gretchen, I'll point out, you know, when you say it's complicated because you still want to have high expectations for your life, I think this goes to the point though that you can get something from different areas. So for instance, college, you can have an interest outside of college that you also do, whether it's volunteering or playing the piano.
- [14:26]
Gretchen Rubin
Right.
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Elizabeth Craft
That adds to your life. Your husband doesn't necessarily have to be your best friend. You can have another best friend.
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Gretchen Rubin
Right.
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Elizabeth Craft
Your family doesn't have to show up for every occasion. Other people can show up for certain occasions.
- [14:41]
Gretchen Rubin
Right.
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Elizabeth Craft
It's that thing of having piecing together satisfaction and not expecting any one thing to meet every need.
- [14:52]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. I think back to my, I think it was called business organizations class in my first year in law school. And this class made a huge impression on me because this is where Jamie was so, like. I was like, so aware of the fact that he was like three rows behind me. So anyway, I have very fond feelings about business organization, but our professor said the investor is wise who diversifies, meaning that you shouldn't have all your investments in one thing because then if it falls, you're completely undiversified, but you should spread your risk. And I think it's true in many, many situations. I often find myself thinking that. And it's the fluency heuristic, because it rhymes. It's easier to remember, and it feels more powerful in the mind. The person is wise who diversifies. Exactly. Don't think that this one area of your life, don't think like family life is going to provide. And I've been thinking about this with the empty nest, right. Because some people are like, my daughter is my best friend. So if it's like your daughter is your best friend and she's also your daughter, that's hard because then she's going to go away and be very preoccupied and probably not be communicating with you nearly as much. And you're going to feel like, oh, my gosh, I lost my daughter and my best friend from my daily life. And so it is. It's just thinking about this. But again, it's this question of what is it proper or what should we expect because we want to expect. I don't know. It's just, again, I feel like there's a secret of adulthood there where there's two things in tension. Both are true at the same time. So I need to articulate them. I just wanted to know what you thought.
- [16:16]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, that definitely resonates with me. And I want to try to put that into practice in my life. I'm going to try not to expect all things from all things.
- [16:26]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, you know, it's just making me think in terms of the workplace because now I'm thinking about what you said, that like, as a boss, you might feel like the people who I'm working with are expecting too much from me as a boss.
- [16:37]
Elizabeth Craft
And it can go the other way.
- [16:39]
Gretchen Rubin
And it can go the other way. Exactly. Okay, well, we'll have to think this through. Yes, listeners, let us know. What do you think in this inchoate Observation.
- [16:47]
Elizabeth Craft
Okay, Gretch, what is our spotlight on a tool this week?
- [16:51]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, Father's Day here in the United States is coming up on June 15, Sunday. And if you are not sure about a gift that you want to give to a father or a father figure in your life, you can take the gift giving quiz. This is such a fun quiz, and it will tell you what his gift appreciation type is. And once you know someone's gift appreciation type, you really have a lot of clues about the kind of gift that would be likely to please them. So the person you're buying a gift for might be an easy to please, a tried and true, an enthusiast or a connoisseur. So take the quiz. It's@happiercast.com giftquiz or you can just go to gretchenrubin.com and look at the quiz section or the gift giving quiz. That'll give you a lot of gift ideas.
- [17:34]
Elizabeth Craft
I love the gift giving quiz. It has such good, specific suggestions.
- [17:38]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, one of the things I like about the quiz is it is a little bit whimsical. And, Elizabeth, you know, we love whimsy. And we are actually gonna do a very special episode coming up about ideas for introducing whimsy into everyday life. This is super fun. We know that this really resonates with people. This is just a way to add a little bit of levity, a little bit of a surprise to everyday life. It just elevates ordinary existence. We really want ideas. How have you introduced whimsy into your life, Alyssa? I'll tell you some whimsy for our lake house. Well, you've seen it. I don't know if you even noticed it because we were so overwhelmed at Thanksgiving, but on the ceiling of one of the rooms, there is a map of the lake, but it has made up names for all of the places. So there's like, Pirate Cove. You know, there's actually not a Pirate Cove on that lake, but it's just that little bit of whimsy that came with a house, and I love it so much. So, you know, not everybody wants to paint a map on the ceiling of a room, but there are probably lots of easier ways to introduce whimsy, and we are making a collection. So let us know for our upcoming very special episode.
- [18:42]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. I can't wait for this, because I need whimsy.
- [18:44]
Gretchen Rubin
Absolutely. We all do. We all do.
- [18:46]
Elizabeth Craft
All right, Gretch, coming up, we've got a question along the lines of our recent question of do you love to feed? But first, this break. As we grow wiser we become more intentional about what we put in our bodies, which is why we're delighted to share Ghia's non alcoholic aperitifs with you. What's remarkable about GIA is there's absolutely no added sugar and of course, zero alcohol. Instead of the hidden sugars found in most wine spritzers or cocktails that can affect our energy levels and metabolic health, Ghia uses only pure botanicals like yuzu, rosemary and elderflower for its sophisticated, bright and bold flavor. Gretch I love taking a really nice glass. You know, I care about my glassware and having that drink, but it's so nice to have it feel special but not be alcoholic.
- [19:47]
Gretchen Rubin
And there's so many great flavors. Ghia ginger, lemon, salt, sumac and chili or Gia soda. Look for Ghia products at a Target or Whole Foods near you and enjoy a special discount. When you shop on drinkg.com use code happier at checkout and get 20% off your order. That'S-R-I-N k g h I a.com and use code happier for 20% off. Elizabeth we're so excited we have this lake house. And for Jamie, one of the great attractions is there. He can grill, and he is a guy who loves to grill. And one of the great things is that Whole Foods Market is a great place to get everything that we need for a fantastic summer barbecue. They have the chicken thighs, the ground beef. We love to have salmon burgers, uncured hot dogs. Plus, there's all the other things that you love for summer barbecue. The ice cream, the tortilla chips, the salsas, salad kits. You can get it all at Whole.
- [20:46]
Elizabeth Craft
Foods Market and look for hundreds of yellow low price signs that help you save without compromising the quality you expect from Whole Foods Market. Yellow really means savings at Whole Foods Market because their hundreds of sale signs are also yellow. Find new sales throughout the store every Wednesday. There are so many ways to save on summer grilling favorites at Whole Foods Market. All right, Gretch, we're back with something else you've been meaning to ask me.
- [21:16]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. Okay. So for my Empty Nest Open Door project, I have been thinking about this question, and clearly I think it resonated a lot with listeners, and so I'm kind of extending it. So my original observation was that sometimes there's something that we really enjoy that is an aspect that's related to family life, but it is not essential to family life. So there's some aspect of it that you really, really get a lot of satisfaction from and you think of it as being part of it, but it's actually separate. So the example that I gave last time was do you love to feed? Because some people really just love to feed. They just love serving up food and giving people seconds and like opening up their pantry to a bunch of teenagers. It's very associated with family life, but it's not actually part of family life. And a lot of people had really fascinating responses to that. So my related question is, do you love to provision? And I would love to hear people's response to this. So by do you love to provision, I mean do you love to buy needful things? So this is different from loving to buy like a luxury or a little treat or you're buying things for enjoyment. It's that you like the kind of hunting and gathering of the things we need to live our lives, the needful things.
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Elizabeth Craft
Yes, I think Sarah, my co host of Happier in Hollywood absolutely has this. She loves to provision. So like, like now she has chickens. She loves to get all the things that you need when you have chickens. Or she's great about preparing for a camping trip. She loves to provision. A camping trip or a go bag for.
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Gretchen Rubin
Right.
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Elizabeth Craft
If you have to evacuate, I assume she must enjoy it because she always, I feel like is doing it.
- [22:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes, well, and that's the thing is maybe if you love to provision, you're very open to situations that would create a need to provision, like having chickens. Whereas if you really do not like to provision, you would be like, oh my gosh, I'd be overwhelmed. Like there'd all be these, all this stuff I would need to buy and I would have to keep up with it and I would have to pay attention to it. So again, you might associate provisioning with family life, but it's not essential to it. So Elizabeth, how about you? Do you love to provision? I think I know the answer to this.
- [23:21]
Elizabeth Craft
I do not in general love to provision. I will say when we were getting ready for our walking trip in England last summer with Wilderness England, I did really enjoy provisioning for that. Going to the store and getting my gaiters and getting a beanie and all of these things that I needed for the trip that was enjoyable probably cause I was excited to go.
- [23:47]
Gretchen Rubin
I believe you went to the boot store four times. I don't think that was the most enjoyable part of the provisioning.
- [23:53]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, that was not fun. But you know what I was thinking about, Gretchen, is a scene I always love in any book or wherever it takes place is the provisioning scene. There's Always that scene when the person goes to the general store and gets, you know, a bag of rice and a knife and a flint or whatever they need and gets their provisions. And I always do find that very satisfying.
- [24:24]
Gretchen Rubin
Interesting.
- [24:25]
Elizabeth Craft
Do you know the scene I'm talking about 100%?
- [24:28]
Gretchen Rubin
I know exactly what you're talking about. And then I'm also wondering if it's related to enjoying stores pantries. Do you remember that scene in Little House in the Big woods where they're playing up in the attic and there's the description of everything hanging from the ceiling and the dried pumpkins and like they're playing and you just have this feeling of like, they put away all this food for the winter and it just feels like this feeling of we're ready for anything, like we're hunkered down. I do feel like that is very, very satisfying. I wonder what it was about the UK trip. Maybe because it was very limited or that we actually had a list, so there was very little decision fatigue. Why do you think that that stood out in your mind as being enjoyable when usually it is not enjoyable?
- [25:08]
Elizabeth Craft
I think you're right. I think it's that we had a list so I didn't have to figure it out. It wasn't like even provisioning for, you know, a camping trip where there might be. Not that I go camping, but where there would be a suggested list. This was a very specific list. So it was. Yes, you could check the items off.
- [25:29]
Gretchen Rubin
But, Elizabeth, I don't think that you've enjoyed getting Jack ready for camp. Right. And that's kind of the same thing.
- [25:35]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes.
- [25:36]
Gretchen Rubin
Was it that it was a vacation? Maybe that it was something that you were preparing yourself for? I don't know. It's interesting. Why sometimes it might be fun and sometimes it might not be fun.
- [25:47]
Elizabeth Craft
Do you enjoy provisioning?
- [25:49]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, usually I do not enjoy provisioning, but you're right. There are certain exceptions with my doing watercolor every single day. I really did enjoy buying the supplies for that and it was funny. It feels more satisfying when I'm like, I actually need this. This is a thing that I am going to use. I actually need a size 10 round brush or I need. The paper that I bought before was too big and so now I need to get a pad of paper that's this size because this is the right size for me. I liked it when it felt like a needful thing, but then when it was feeling like, oh, I'm just having fun and like, kind of letting myself go and buy luxury, that didn't feel as fun. And that's why I made the rule for myself that I couldn't buy anything that I didn't already have for two months because I wanted to make sure that I was really buying the things that I would actually use and need. And I was like, if I don't have enough experience, I'm just going to end up buying a bunch of stuff because it's fun, you know, it's like, oh, it's fun to buy all these supplies.
- [26:41]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, here's a thought about why I enjoyed preparing for our walking trip. And that is because maybe it was associated with my fantasy self. So my fantasy self takes trips to England and just walks for days and stays in little country inns. And it was a time when my fantasy self and my real self were merging into one, and so I was enjoying that. And maybe for you, like with the art supplies, your fantasy self does watercolor every day and you're merging.
- [27:17]
Gretchen Rubin
That is fascinating. Maybe that is a sign that you're on the right track.
- [27:23]
Elizabeth Craft
Maybe.
- [27:24]
Gretchen Rubin
You know what I mean?
- [27:25]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. When you're merging.
- [27:27]
Gretchen Rubin
I forget who said this. It's an aphorism, and I'm forgetting the attribution. But it's the true test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery involved. And I often think of that. You love the drudgery. And maybe the test of something where you're pushing yourself outside the comfort zone, arguably closer to your fantasy of self, but maybe it could be your real self. Is. Is this part of what you enjoy? Because I wonder about that. We're going to have to think about that, because that would be a very useful tell.
- [27:53]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes.
- [27:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Because I think one of the things people often think of is like, I want to do this, but I want to be realistic. I don't want to just pretend like I'm going to do all this stuff. And. Well, because there's also the problem with People love to buy all this stuff, and then they don't actually do it. So that itself. Because that is the thing where you're telling yourself it's a needful thing, but it's not actually a needful thing because you're not actually gonna use it. But sometimes you don't know. It can all be very confusing, but it's fascinating to think about.
- [28:18]
Elizabeth Craft
Yeah. You know what else I remember, Gretchen, is when I was just about to give birth to Jack, I had all these provisions for that and that I really enjoyed. And I remember our guest room was filled with. With all these things that weren't yet opened. So it was like boxes of things and things wrapped in plastic. And I remember sleeping sometimes in the guest room. Cause I was having trouble sleeping. And I loved being surrounded by all of those baby provisions. It gave me a great feeling of comfort that I had everything. And excitement.
- [28:56]
Gretchen Rubin
Exactly. And then there is nesting. This is like the instinct to sort of get everything organized for a new baby. I remember Eliza got put on bedrest, so they were really like, unless you're going to the bathroom, maybe you can occasionally take a shower, but you really should stay in bed rest. Which, by the way, now, I don't think they would tell you to do that. But that's what they told me to do. But I remember sometimes I simply could not resist going into her room and reorganizing the onesies or, like, making different piles of little newborn diapers. Because that urge to, like, look at all the stuff and organize, it was so strong. And I think that's the provisioning. Like, do I have what I need? And just the pleasure of getting those things assembled. But you could see, if you really love to provision, then family life would give you a lot of vacation. It's like your children are growing, so you're constantly like, now we need to buy you a new set of sneakers. And now we need to get you ready for the school year. And now we need to get ready for the family camping trip. And now we're going to go visit the grandparents. And, like, do you have all your stuff? Like, there is this provisioning aspect to it, but it can be seen as something that is distinct from family life. It's part of it, but it's not essential to it.
- [30:00]
Elizabeth Craft
Very interesting. Okay, Gretch, finally, what is our quotation this week?
- [30:05]
Gretchen Rubin
This is an observation from Charles Caleb Colton. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.
- [30:16]
Elizabeth Craft
Hmm, Very true.
- [30:18]
Gretchen Rubin
So, Elizabeth, are you feeling happier?
- [30:21]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, I am feeling happier. Thank you to Chuck. Bye, Gretch.
- [30:26]
Gretchen Rubin
Bye, Elizabeth. The best time to start a happiness project is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. So, Elizabeth, we need to provision ourselves for our reading retreat, which means we're going to have to figure out what is the stack of books that we are going to bring with us. I'm trying to figure out what my vision is. And of course, it has to be something that I already own since I'm doing my Sundoku Summer. Have you started thinking about that?
- [31:02]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. Well, I was thinking, am I going to bring one big book to tackle or a bunch of fast books. That's on my mind.
- [31:10]
Gretchen Rubin
We could bring one copy of War and Peace. We both don't need to bring that.
- [31:14]
Elizabeth Craft
Oh, yes, that is true.
- [31:21]
Gretchen Rubin
From the onward project.