The Art of Manliness - 20 Secrets of Adulthood

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.940 Figuring out the pitfalls and best practices of adulthood can be tricky. It's helpful to

00:00:16.320 have some pearls of wisdom to guide you along the way. My guest today has spent decades collecting

00:00:20.800 these kinds of helpful truths and has crafted her own guiding mantras of maturity. Gretchen

00:00:25.660 Rubin is the author of numerous bestselling books, including The Happiness Project and her latest,

00:00:30.180 Secrets of Adulthood. Today on the show, Gretchen shares how she came to write hundreds of aphorisms

00:00:34.180 on how to navigate life, and we dig into some of my favorites of these concise, sage sayings.

00:00:39.140 Amongst many topics, we discuss why happiness doesn't always make us feel happy,

00:00:42.920 the best strategy for changing ourselves, a very useful heuristic for making decisions,

00:00:47.760 why you should wear a favorite sweater more often, and even why big top tables at restaurants are

00:00:52.340 one of my pet peeves. After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash secrets of adulthood.

00:01:00.000 Gretchen Rubin, welcome to the show.

00:01:16.780 I'm so happy to be talking to you.

00:01:18.940 No, likewise. So we were talking before we got on. We go way back.

00:01:22.500 We go way back.

00:01:24.760 Way back. So both you and I started off as bloggers. We still blog. They still call it blogging.

00:01:30.840 I call it my site.

00:01:32.360 Your site?

00:01:33.100 I'm posting on my site.

00:01:34.760 That's what I say. Because blog, I feel kind of silly when I say I'm a blogger.

00:01:38.440 Yeah, that feels very retro.

00:01:39.880 So yeah, you have the Happiness Project. That was what you started off with. Got the art of

00:01:43.960 manliness. We were part of this community of other self-development writers back in 2008. So yeah,

00:01:50.140 you've been writing about personal development. I mean, it's been almost 20 years now or over 20

00:01:54.800 years. As you look back on your career, what would you say is the connecting thread through everything

00:02:01.660 you've written and put out there?

00:02:03.040 Well, if I had to say what my subject is, I would say my subject is human nature.

00:02:08.260 And in fact, before I started writing about sort of happiness and good habits, I wrote a book called

00:02:13.440 Power, Money, Fame, Sex, A User's Guide, which is my first book. Then I wrote kind of a short

00:02:18.640 unconventional biography of Winston Churchill and one of John F. Kennedy. And to me, I think to a lot

00:02:25.620 of people, those books seem very different from the books that I've written sort of in the last

00:02:29.520 while. But to me, they're all about human nature. So you learn about human nature by studying Winston

00:02:35.280 Churchill because he's just this gigantic figure. So I think that is my subject. Like, who are we?

00:02:41.820 How do we understand ourselves better? How do we change if we want to change? How do we understand

00:02:45.920 other people?

00:02:47.440 And then, yeah, you started the Happiness Project, started off as a blog, turned into books,

00:02:51.420 it's kind of become this media empire. And there you're just trying to explore, it seems like,

00:02:55.780 what does it mean to live a flourishing human life?

00:02:59.520 Exactly. Like, can you make yourself happier? And if so, how? That's my question. Yes.

00:03:06.680 When you say happiness, how do you define happiness?

00:03:10.000 Well, I started out my career in law, as did you, Brett. And maybe you also have happy memories

00:03:15.640 of spending an entire semester arguing about the definition of contract. And happiness is an even

00:03:22.400 more elusive concept to define. There are something like 15 or 17 academic definitions of happiness.

00:03:28.960 And I think that for the layperson, it can be whatever you want. Joy, peace, bliss, satisfaction,

00:03:35.840 well-being, whatever you conceive of as being happiness for you. Because I think that it's

00:03:43.200 more useful to think about being happier. Whatever that means for you, what can you do with your

00:03:48.260 conscious thoughts and actions starting tomorrow without a lot of time, energy, or money to move

00:03:53.160 yourself in the right direction? So next week, next month, next year, can we make our lives

00:03:59.480 happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? And I think that's much clearer to

00:04:04.960 understand, like, is this going to make me happier? It's much easier to answer for the average person

00:04:09.720 than, like, can I achieve happiness? Yeah.

00:04:12.540 Because when I think about that, I'm like, what does that even mean? It feels so abstract that it's

00:04:16.500 hard to grasp even what that would look like. Well, something you've done recently, you come

00:04:20.740 out with a new book called Secrets of Adulthood, where you've put together a collection of aphorisms

00:04:27.080 that you've developed to help people make sense of this topsy-turvy, complex world we live in.

00:04:33.660 Yeah. And at the beginning of the book, Secrets of Adulthood, you talk about your lifelong love

00:04:39.600 of aphorisms. You've been collecting them since you were eight years old. What draws you to the

00:04:44.400 aphoristic style? Well, first, let me say what an aphorism is, because I think a lot of people

00:04:48.860 don't know. That's why I didn't use the word aphorism in the title or subtitle of the book.

00:04:53.420 So, an aphorism is a short, it's usually a sentence or two, insight observation about human nature

00:05:02.560 that's meant to be sort of a general observation, and it's attributed to a particular person. Maybe

00:05:07.740 it's Mark Twain, maybe it's Oscar Wilde, maybe it's Warren Buffett, maybe it's Montaigne,

00:05:11.720 and then that way it's different from a proverb. So, a proverb is folk wisdom. These are ideas,

00:05:17.500 you know, reminders, things that have been kicking around for centuries, like you can't push a rope,

00:05:23.500 or sailors fear fire more than water, or you're only as happy as your least happy child. These

00:05:30.300 are pieces of folk wisdom, but an aphorism, we know who said it. And I'm very drawn to aphorisms because,

00:05:36.620 well, first of all, they're short, and I love, I think there's so much power in keeping things brief,

00:05:41.580 really having to crystallize ideas, to distill them down into like, just a sentence or two.

00:05:49.140 That's very creatively challenging, and it's also intellectually challenging, because to write that

00:05:54.080 way, you really have to be able to think that way, and that's hard. And then I think that they're just,

00:05:59.460 they have more power in the mind, because we can grasp them. So, for the last while, I have been

00:06:05.720 really pushing myself when I have a big idea to see if I can express it in an aphorism.

00:06:12.440 Are there any famous historical aphorists that you like?

00:06:16.620 Well, I do love Oscar Wilde. If you read something like The Portrait of Dorian Gray,

00:06:21.460 it's like reading Hamlet. You recognize so many lines, because so many of them are so famous.

00:06:26.260 One of my hopes with writing this book is to bring back into the spotlight one of my favorite

00:06:31.940 aphorists, who is a 19th century Austrian aphorists named Marie von Idna Eschenbach,

00:06:38.920 who's amazing. Like, one of my favorites of hers is, you can fall so fast, you think you're flying.

00:06:46.500 Which I'm like, whoa, that's powerful. And then there are people who, like I mentioned,

00:06:52.600 Warren Buffett. He can invest, and he can also really write. There are many really funny,

00:06:58.160 thoughtful aphorisms in his letters to shareholders. So, I'm looking for them all the time.

00:07:04.900 And so, those are some of my favorites. Oh, Andy Warhol. I don't even really like his art,

00:07:09.640 but he said these extremely unpredictable, thoughtful aphorisms, you know, that just keep

00:07:17.860 your mind rolling.

00:07:19.140 Well, he's come up with, like, you know, everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame.

00:07:22.560 Yes, exactly. He's extremely famous for that. And then he has, like, my favorite kind of atmosphere

00:07:27.720 today is the airport atmosphere. And I'm like, I know exactly what you mean by that. Or I can't

00:07:32.920 remember how he said it exactly, but he said something like, the most old-fashioned thing

00:07:37.260 that people do is get pregnant. And I completely understand that. It does feel so old-fashioned 0.99

00:07:43.000 to, like, actually get pregnant. I'm also like, volcanoes. Haven't we all kind of outgrown

00:07:47.160 volcanoes? That seems like kind of an ancient Rome thing. Are they still happening? Every time there's

00:07:51.800 a volcano, I'm like, huh, I thought these things are sort of out of date. I don't know,

00:07:56.880 you know. But again, it's like, what do I even mean by that? That's a ridiculous thing to say.

00:08:00.760 But Andy Warhol helps me have these odd thoughts. So, that's one of the reasons that I love his

00:08:05.460 writing so much.

00:08:07.340 Yeah, a few aphorisms that I enjoy. Nietzsche, he had some killer aphorisms. I think his

00:08:12.280 writing style, his best writing style is his aphorisms. I also like Francois de la

00:08:18.200 Roche Foucault, the French author. Yeah, he's great. He's amazing.

00:08:21.960 He's kind of, like, cynical, which is interesting. The aphorism is a very judgmental form. When you're

00:08:28.360 writing them, you find that you, I see why he is so cynical. It's a form that invites you to write

00:08:34.160 that way. So, okay, so what are some of your favorites? Well, here's one I brought up. We did

00:08:37.560 an article highlighting some of his maxims. Here's one. Fortunate people rarely correct their

00:08:42.280 faults. They always think they are right, while fortune is favoring their evil conduct.

00:08:46.580 I mean, is that so true?

00:08:48.940 That's true. That happens.

00:08:50.080 It's so true. Yes.

00:08:51.220 Another one. This one's really cynical. No one deserves to be praised for kindness if he does

00:08:56.700 not have the strength to be bad. Every other form of kindness must often merely be laziness or lack

00:09:02.500 of willpower. I mean, that is cynical.

00:09:06.500 It is, but I kind of think there's some truth to it. Because, I mean, for being good to mean anything,

00:09:10.520 you have to have the capability to do otherwise.

00:09:12.780 Wait, if you give me a second, I can read some of my favorites. Hang on.

00:09:17.160 Yeah.

00:09:17.280 From my collection of his. Hang on. Let's see.

00:09:21.280 Those who apply themselves too much to small things ordinarily become incapable of great ones.

00:09:27.260 Well, here is one that I really think is true. However dazzling an action may be,

00:09:32.960 it should not pass for great when it is not the result of a great design.

00:09:37.820 And I think that's very true. Like sometimes people do things accidentally and you don't

00:09:42.820 really get credit for that because you didn't do it on purpose.

00:09:46.080 Yeah. That reminds me of Machiavelli where he talks about the difference between virtue

00:09:50.580 and fortune. So sometimes we confuse the two.

00:09:55.040 Yes.

00:09:55.220 Another aphorist that I like, GK Chesterton.

00:09:58.120 Oh, I love Chesterton. I'm so glad you mentioned him because I feel like he's kind of fallen out of

00:10:04.040 the spotlight and I love the writing of GK Chesterton.

00:10:06.860 Yeah. He does this thing where he kind of inverts the sentence.

00:10:10.680 Yes. Yes.

00:10:11.340 And so he comes up with these little witty, witty sayings about life. So in this book,

00:10:15.660 Secrets of Adulthood, you developed your own aphorisms. Did you find that challenging?

00:10:19.340 And if so, like what was hard about it?

00:10:21.300 Well, it is very challenging because first you have to have a thought and I don't know about you,

00:10:24.760 but I find it very hard to have thoughts. And then you have to really distill the thought

00:10:29.020 into a succinct form and to aim for elegance because, you know, we're talking about La Roche

00:10:35.860 Choucault, Chesterton, Oscar Wilde. You know, they express their ideas very beautifully. There's,

00:10:42.800 as you say, there's often inversion, there's often paradox, often with an aphorism, there are,

00:10:47.500 there are things to kind of increase the writerly elegance of them. So that's very challenging.

00:10:54.400 So I have been working on these for years. I've certainly, I've been collecting them for ever

00:10:59.080 from other people. And then I started writing them myself and collecting them myself. And,

00:11:04.400 you know, this is not the kind of book that I could have sat down and written in like,

00:11:09.720 you know, just like done it, just like, because they had to come to me in moments. And some of

00:11:14.980 them arise out of my previous books, like The Happiness Project or Better Than Before,

00:11:18.600 like The Aphorism, The Secret of Adulthood, Habits Are the Invisible Architecture,

00:11:24.400 of Everyday Life. That was something that I wrote for my book Better Than Before. That was an idea

00:11:29.040 that I had when I was thinking about how we make and break habits. But a lot of these are things

00:11:34.340 that I've just noticed along the way and been gathering up for a really, really long time.

00:11:39.500 So as you were putting together the book Secrets of Adulthood, how did you figure out which ones made

00:11:44.800 it? So I had this giant trove that I'd been working on for years, but I decided I wanted them to be

00:11:49.980 Secrets of Adulthood, meaning there was something in them that could be useful as you were facing a

00:11:55.680 challenge of life. So maybe you were facing procrastination, or you were finding it hard

00:11:59.760 to make a decision, or you were perplexed by a relationship, or you were trying to know yourself

00:12:04.140 better. All of them are aimed to help give insight into something that is a challenge of adulthood.

00:12:11.500 Because many of the aphorisms that I wrote were just observations, like a dog doesn't gaze at a

00:12:19.100 waterfall. I think that's interesting. It's true. Or the tulip is an empty flower. I believe that. The

00:12:25.860 tulip is an empty flower. What is up with that? But those are mere observations. And then I had a lot

00:12:31.300 of bleak aphorisms. As we were saying, the form kind of pushes you in a dark direction. And I had a lot

00:12:39.300 that were very dark. And I thought, oh, you know, nobody wants my dark aphorisms. Let me distill this

00:12:45.760 into the Secrets of Adulthood. I love it. Well, maybe you should release the dark ones as a secret 1.00

00:12:51.480 item somehow. Well, you know what's, I know, Gretchen Rubin after dark. What's funny is on my

00:12:55.860 book tour, whenever I, a lot of times it would come up that I had written those, everybody said,

00:13:00.580 I want to read your dark aphorisms. And I think that's the negativity bias, right? People are always

00:13:05.420 interested in the dark things or the negative things. And so I should figure out what to do

00:13:11.140 with them because I worked on them just as hard as I worked on the ones that ended up in

00:13:14.840 Secrets of Adulthood. Brett, I am sure you know the feeling. It's so painful to leave anything on

00:13:19.640 the cutting room floor. It's always very exciting if you think, oh, maybe there's a way I can use this

00:13:24.360 stuff after all. So let's dig into some of your Secrets of Adulthood. I really enjoyed reading

00:13:29.260 through your aphorisms and I've kind of picked out some that I like. And let's just riff on them. I'll talk

00:13:33.920 about them and let's just riff on it together. So the one that really stuck out to me is one of

00:13:38.560 the very first ones. Happiness doesn't always make us feel happy. Yeah, because I think when I was

00:13:47.040 first writing the Happiness Project, I was really struggling to understand, like, how do you even

00:13:51.660 think about happiness? What's a framework for even contemplating it? And I realized that if you're

00:13:58.200 thinking about how to make our lives happier, we want to think about feeling good, feeling bad,

00:14:03.420 feeling right, and an atmosphere of growth. So feeling good is enthusiasm, love, friendship,

00:14:09.780 energy, all the things that we want to have more of. And then there's feeling bad. So that's things

00:14:15.380 like anger, resentment, guilt, boredom. Those are things that make us feel bad. We want less of those.

00:14:21.820 Then we also want to feel right, which means we want our life to reflect our values. We want to put our

00:14:27.320 values into the world and we want to demonstrate our values through our actions. And then also we want the

00:14:32.320 atmosphere of growth. And so the atmosphere of growth is when we're growing, learning, teaching,

00:14:37.300 fixing, solving, where we feel like we're growing or we're contributing to the growth of others or to

00:14:43.860 the growth of the world. And the fact is, sometimes when we do things to help us live up to our values

00:14:50.700 or to cultivate an atmosphere of growth, we don't feel very happy. Like an atmosphere of growth,

00:14:56.160 when you're learning to do something, often you feel insecure or frustrated, even angry.

00:15:01.060 When you're feeling right about living up to your values, often you might be doing something that

00:15:06.220 you don't enjoy. Like I remember a friend telling me how he went to go visit his very, very difficult

00:15:12.680 father in the hospital and his two brothers refused to go. They wouldn't see their father. But he said,

00:15:17.860 I really don't like to go. I dread going and we've never gotten along. And he was a terrible father,

00:15:24.580 but he's still my father. And so I feel like I have to go. And I'm like, well, yeah, it made you

00:15:28.660 feel bad, but you feel right because you're like, I'm living my values, which is we're still father,

00:15:35.400 son. And I feel like I need to do this. And so happiness doesn't always make us feel happy.

00:15:40.440 Yeah. When I read that, I love Aristotle. So immediately I thought of Aristotle.

00:15:43.640 Oh, talk about aphorism. Yeah. Got a million of those. But you know, he talked about like his idea

00:15:48.820 of happiness, the way it was defined, it was flourishing or eudaimonia. And it meant just living

00:15:53.000 a good life all around. And it didn't necessarily mean feeling good. It wasn't hedonism. And even

00:15:59.180 Epicurus, he makes that argument that sometimes in order to live a pleasurable life, you have to do

00:16:04.760 unpleasurable things in the short term. Yeah. Yeah. Like exactly right. There's some things that don't

00:16:09.100 feel good in the short term, but if you do them, it's going to lead to something bigger.

00:16:13.200 Yes. And it's going to make you feel good in the long run.

00:16:15.600 Kind of related to this, another one of your aphorisms, there is no right way to create a

00:16:20.000 happier life just as there's no best way to cook an egg. Well, this came from an experience that I

00:16:26.400 have often, which is because I write about happiness. People are always like, okay, what should I do to be

00:16:30.500 happier? What's the secret to happiness? And I always say, well, you know, it depends on you. It

00:16:36.200 depends on your nature, your challenges, your interests, your values. There's no one best way because

00:16:41.240 we're all different. And then they say to me, okay, well, we're just like, what's the best way?

00:16:46.060 And so now, and I could never think of an answer, a satisfying answer. And so now I say, well,

00:16:50.560 what's the best way to cook an egg? And they say, well, there is no best way. It depends on how you

00:16:56.400 like your eggs. And some people say like, I don't even like eggs. And I'm like, that's right. There is

00:17:00.600 no best way to cook an egg. Just like there's no best way to make your life happier because it depends

00:17:05.820 on each of us what we want. Oh yeah. That idea of like the secret to life. Everyone's just looking

00:17:11.320 for it. Reminds me of, you remember City Slickers? Yeah. Yeah. Curly, you know, the guide on the,

00:17:18.160 the, the ranch trip. I'm not sure I ever actually saw it. Is this the one with Billy, um, with Billy

00:17:23.160 Crystal? Yeah. He's had like a, he has like a midlife crisis. Yeah. I don't think I ever actually saw it.

00:17:28.420 Okay. Well, it's a great, I would recommend it. It's, it's a fun baby boomer movie about midlife

00:17:33.200 that were made in the nineties. You have me. Yeah. I'm convinced. But, uh, you know, Curly's

00:17:38.080 this like hardened trail hand who's taking these guys on this dude ranch trip. And he said, the

00:17:43.320 secret of life is just one thing. And he never says what that one thing is. That's funny. Because

00:17:50.080 the answer is, well, it's the one thing to you. You got to figure that out. Right. Right. Well,

00:17:55.440 it's funny because since so many people are like, but what is the habit I should work on the most? I

00:17:59.220 actually did create a quiz that will tell the individual because I can't like meet you and

00:18:04.900 just from that tell you the right thing. But this quiz, which is just on my site will tell

00:18:10.520 each individual, like what right now is the thing that would move the needle the most on

00:18:15.080 your happiness based on your answers. And of course it might be different in a month, but

00:18:19.200 it is kind of uncanny how often people are like, Oh yeah, you know, that is really where

00:18:23.540 I feel like I need to do the most work. So there, there are definitely individual answers,

00:18:28.540 but there is no one size fits all answer. Yeah. And related to that is the idea that

00:18:34.220 what makes you happy is going to change throughout your life. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's something

00:18:40.280 I've learned. Like what worked for me when I was in, when my twenties does not work for me in my forties.

00:18:45.680 Well, and related to that is something called hedonic forecasting, which is the ability to predict

00:18:51.980 what will make you happier in the future. And turns out we humans are really, really bad at this.

00:18:57.200 We are not good at thinking, okay, what is the happiness consequence of this decision?

00:19:03.780 And so that's one thing if you're working on your happiness is to try to improve your hedonic

00:19:08.320 forecasting because we tend not to be very good at it. All right. Here's another one that stood out

00:19:12.900 to me because I've, I've been thinking about this for a long time, accept yourself and expect more

00:19:19.480 from yourself. Okay. This is a good example of something that took me months and months and

00:19:24.700 months to wrap my mind around because I got caught in like, well, it's really important to accept

00:19:31.820 ourselves and to show ourselves self-compassion and not to like be unrealistic and set ourselves up for

00:19:39.160 other people's expectations. But then I would also think, but we also have to try to get ourselves out

00:19:45.520 of our comfort zone and we do need the atmosphere of growth and we don't want to be complacent and we

00:19:50.100 don't want to fall short of our potential. And then finally I thought, well, both are true.

00:19:55.820 And then I was like, okay, I could write about that for pages, but is there a way to distill those two

00:20:03.740 truths that are intention to distill that into a single sentence? And so saying, accept yourself and

00:20:09.960 also expect more from yourself. That took me months and months and months really to write.

00:20:14.080 Yeah. And I'm spending like my entire life trying to figure out, am I accepting myself and expecting,

00:20:20.360 like, am I, am I just, am I being content, but not being complacent? And sometimes you have to ask

00:20:24.780 myself, you know, when I think I'm being content, well, actually, am I just being complacent?

00:20:29.360 I mean, it's the great challenge of our lives, I think is to recognize, and people are always like,

00:20:33.580 okay, but then how can you tell? And I'm like, that is what's hard about adulthood. There's no magic

00:20:39.560 answer to tell you, is this something where you should accept yourself and just say like,

00:20:44.440 hey, that's not my thing. And spend your time doing things that are more in line with your true

00:20:50.120 nature. Or you're like, no, this is something that's reasonable for me to expect for myself.

00:20:55.180 I can do this. I can expect this from myself. I want to push myself, even if it doesn't feel good.

00:21:00.880 Let's talk about change. You write a lot about change.

00:21:03.260 Yeah.

00:21:03.460 We want to expect more from ourselves and get better. One of your aphorisms is,

00:21:08.060 it's easier to change our surroundings and our schedules than to change ourselves.

00:21:12.480 Yes. Oh my gosh. I so firmly believe this because people will often, and I saw this when I was

00:21:16.820 writing Better Than Before, when I was really focusing on habits, is people will be like,

00:21:20.160 well, I want to be a completely different kind of person. And I'm like, I don't know if that's

00:21:24.120 possible, but if it is possible, it's very hard. And then I'm like, but you could just change your

00:21:29.680 schedule. You could just change your surroundings. You could work on the things around you,

00:21:33.460 your conscious thoughts and actions. And that's much easier. I remember I was doing an interview

00:21:37.860 with a reporter in front of an audience. And there was this very, to me, very poignant moment

00:21:42.920 where she said, I want to be the kind of person who loves to get up and go for a five mile run

00:21:48.120 every day. And I was like, I don't think you ever will be that kind of person. Like, I don't want

00:21:53.160 to be discouraging, but knowing you as I know you, I don't think that's, I don't think that's who you

00:21:59.040 are. I don't think that's how you're wired. And in some ways we just have to say to ourselves,

00:22:02.500 you get what you get and you don't get upset. And like, I'm me. I'm like, but if what you want

00:22:08.120 is you want to be fit, if what you want is to have a healthy body, if what you want is to be

00:22:14.540 consistent in your promises to yourself, to do something that's going to be really good for

00:22:18.620 your life and your mood and your immune function and your memory, that you can work on. You can put

00:22:25.180 it in the schedule. You can set yourself up for success to keep that habit. But saying like, well,

00:22:30.600 I want to be a different kind of person so that this behavior will come easily. That's not a good

00:22:35.680 way to succeed. You have to say, given who I am, what can I do to get where I want to go? Instead

00:22:40.400 of, can I transform myself into an utterly different kind of person and therefore live a

00:22:45.140 different life? No, I totally agree. I've seen it in my own life. So going back to Aristotle,

00:22:49.560 if you want to be fit, you have to do fit things or put yourself in a fit environment. We'll get you,

00:22:55.220 help you out a lot. Exactly. Excellence is a habit. Yeah. Speaking of change,

00:22:59.360 another one, you talk about just changing other people because in adulthood, you're going to deal

00:23:03.600 with just so many frustrating, frustrating people. And we're just like, why can't you just be like

00:23:08.820 this? But so you have an aphorism for that. It's we can't make people change, but when we change,

00:23:14.700 our relationships change. And so others may also change. Yes. What got me thinking about this was

00:23:20.140 when my daughters were very young, I'm an irritable person. I'm a cranky person. I'm a carping person.

00:23:26.400 I'm a high strung person. I'm a rigid person. Like that's who I am. Right. And if you have little

00:23:32.360 kids, that's a hard way to be because they are disorderly and messy and for your schedule off. And I

00:23:38.800 was just a more irritable kind of parent than I wanted to be. And I would get frustrated and kind

00:23:44.660 of crabby and they would get frustrated and crabby. And then it was just, it all went downhill.

00:23:48.760 But then when I was like, okay, I'm going to get up earlier. So I have a bigger margin in the morning

00:23:53.300 so I can get up and just sort of like my own quiet way, get dressed and get organized and

00:23:57.920 have my cup of coffee. Thoreau said, I love a broad margin to my life. I'm a person who needs a broad

00:24:03.220 margin. I'm going to build in more margins so that I don't feel rushed or pressed for time. And so I'm

00:24:07.860 not hustling them along. We have plenty of time. When I started doing all these things to make my,

00:24:13.480 and then just working on staying patient, staying good humored, seeing the funny side and, you know,

00:24:20.900 not constantly depressing. When I relaxed, they relaxed. When I had a warmer, more tender

00:24:28.500 attitude, they also became calmer and more cheerful. And so I didn't do anything to change

00:24:35.200 them. I only changed myself, but because I changed, they responded. And so then the atmosphere of our

00:24:41.540 household changed. Yeah. This reminded me when I read that aphorism of Bowen family systems theory,

00:24:46.640 are you familiar with Bowen family systems theory? A little bit. Yeah. I mean, I know, I know that

00:24:50.320 it's, yeah, but not in what, in what, in what respect? Yeah. So there's this idea, this thing

00:24:55.580 developed by this guy named Murray Bowen back in the 50s, 60s. And his idea was that, you know,

00:25:00.540 we carry over our relationship dynamics that we developed when we were kids and our family of

00:25:05.860 origin to other relationships. And one of his big ideas is there's often a lot of what he calls

00:25:12.340 anxiety in a relationship. I mean, anxiety isn't like nervousness. It's just kind of like stress.

00:25:17.300 Everyone's just kind of freaking out about stuff. And he says, in order to change that dynamic,

00:25:21.240 one person in that relationship, they have to be differentiated. And so they have to like not

00:25:28.360 catch the anxiety of the other person. So he says you have to be a calm, non-anxious presence.

00:25:34.940 And then his idea is like, well, if you change, if one person changes themselves in the system,

00:25:39.400 then the system becomes more calm. Yes. Yes. That's interesting. I think that's

00:25:43.320 100% true. In my own family growing up, my father is just this very calm, unflappable,

00:25:49.920 cheerful, enthusiastic person. Like whatever you want to do, that's great. And I realized

00:25:55.180 much later in life how much I had taken that for granted and how much his attitude really did act

00:26:01.360 as a buffer for other people's agitation or, you know, that he could kind of absorb it and then

00:26:08.520 let everybody kind of calm down or reach equilibrium. And it's only, you know, with

00:26:15.000 much greater maturity that I was like, that's a lot of work. I always thought that's just his nature.

00:26:20.160 And I'm like, that does not, that's, that's not easy for anyone. Like that is a way that he is

00:26:26.340 choosing to be. And I realized how valuable it was and probably how, how much energy it took to be

00:26:33.040 always that person in the system who was able to be like, let's just, let's just chill out a little

00:26:38.660 bit here. Like, let's have a sense of humor about it. Yeah, I agree. I'm like you. I'm very high

00:26:43.140 strung, not super high strung, but I'm cranky. I mean, that's why we went to law. Yeah. Possibly.

00:26:49.260 Yeah. It's good for cranky people. It's good for cranky people.

00:26:51.580 It's a cranky profession. Yes. We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:26:58.820 And now back to the show. One of the hardest things or can be really hard about being adult

00:27:04.220 is being a parent. Super complex. Actually, I've noticed this. Maybe people talk about how being

00:27:09.840 a parent is hard. Like when they have babies, little kids, I actually didn't think being a

00:27:14.000 parent of babies or little kids was that hard. It was just because you're just like, you have to take,

00:27:17.780 make sure they're fed and safe and it's fun. And sometimes it's tiring. I'm finding it's getting

00:27:23.860 harder and harder to be a parent as my kids have gotten older because their problems have gotten

00:27:28.960 bigger and more complex. Well, they say little children, little problems. Yeah. Big kids,

00:27:34.280 big problems. Yeah. That's a folk proverb. Well, I think when they're young, it's physically demanding.

00:27:39.200 And when they're older, it's more emotionally, intellectually demanding. Yes. So you've got some

00:27:44.160 aphorisms about being a parent. And one of them is, I really resonated with this. We can't change

00:27:50.500 our children's natures by nagging them or signing them up for classes. Right. I mean, it's just,

00:27:58.520 again, it's like, you get what you get and you don't get upset. Like, of course we can help people

00:28:03.480 reach their potential and we can help them accept themselves and also expect more from themselves.

00:28:07.800 But in the end, you're not going to change people's natures. And, you know, with a lot of these,

00:28:13.780 these aphorisms, there was kind of an origin story or there was something that happened to me or

00:28:17.720 something that I read, which really caught my attention and sort of had me thinking and turning

00:28:21.420 it over in my head, like a dog with a bone, trying to understand it. And in this very funny

00:28:25.760 encounter with somebody that I hardly knew, she was the mother of somebody who had a son that was my

00:28:30.220 daughter's age. And she was talking about how he had gotten all this money for his birthday. And he

00:28:35.280 was young, like a young teenager. And he wanted to start one of these, these, I don't even really know

00:28:40.860 what it is. It's some kind of account where you could put your money in and you do kind of pretend

00:28:44.760 investing. It's the kind of thing that if you were the kind of kid that wanted to grow up and become

00:28:49.520 a finance person or investor, you would be very interested in. Like he wanted to learn about the

00:28:53.880 stock market and he wanted to like place his bets and everything. And she was like, you know,

00:28:58.680 though, I just think, wouldn't he be better off spending that time doing something like learning

00:29:03.280 ceramics? And I was like, let me stop you right here. I think you would like to learn ceramics.

00:29:10.860 I think you should let your kid do what he wants. That's a totally reasonable thing for a child to

00:29:15.280 want to do. He's not actually risking his money. He's interested in a subject that's, you know,

00:29:21.600 so why would you say like, oh no, I mean, it would be the rare child who would like to do both of those

00:29:27.800 equally. And I think that that's just what sounded fun to her. Yeah. As my kids have gotten older,

00:29:33.940 I've noticed this more and more is that they have their own personality. Yes, they do.

00:29:39.240 And no matter how much I nag them about something like, hey, you know, it doesn't do anything. So

00:29:46.020 it's just trying to figure out like, what can I do to harness that in a more positive direction is

00:29:50.460 what I'm trying to do. But I also think that there's a different, and I think about this a lot

00:29:53.620 because I think it is, it's one of the big challenges of parenting, which is there's helping

00:29:58.080 people do something that they want to do, but they're dreading doing either because it's so much

00:30:03.440 work or there's so many steps to it, or there's something about it that just makes them really

00:30:07.060 uncomfortable. So like I live in New York City and neither of my daughters who are like 26 and 20,

00:30:12.080 neither of them have a driver's license because it's so hard. They have to learn how to drive and

00:30:16.320 it's hard to practice because we live in New York City. And then it's really hard just like to take

00:30:20.360 the test. And one of my daughters failed the test. So then she has to take it again. And it's just,

00:30:24.520 there's so much paperwork. There's so many steps. It's so awful. So I am kind of badgering them

00:30:29.260 about that because I know in the end, this is something that they want. They both know how to drive.

00:30:33.300 It's just like a lot of steps, but that's different from saying, oh, I think you should,

00:30:37.180 I'm going to badger you to take up scuba diving, even though you have no interest in it, just because

00:30:41.900 I think it's something that would be cool for you to do or something or, or what's really hard,

00:30:47.880 I think is when, because the parent loves something, they want the child to love it too. And they become

00:30:54.480 angry when the child doesn't love it. Like everybody in our family loves University of Nebraska football.

00:31:01.220 We're all Cornhuskers. You should love University of Nebraska football too. And if you don't love

00:31:07.660 it, then there's something wrong with you. Yeah. You can't do that.

00:31:10.820 Yeah. You know, you can try to expose them. You can try to get them people interested,

00:31:14.200 but at a certain point, it's like people have their own, I mean, I don't like the Olympics and

00:31:19.840 I can't tell you how many people are constantly trying to convince me to like the Olympics. I'm like,

00:31:23.980 I'm just here to tell you, I'm not interested in the Olympics.

00:31:26.900 Not doing it. You know? Yeah. I mean, I think as a parent,

00:31:30.540 what you can do is you can kind of think of yourself as a gardener instead of a carpenter.

00:31:34.920 Yes. That's the Alison Gopnik. Yeah. So you're a gardener, you kind of create an environment where

00:31:39.680 they can flourish because they come with these seeds of personality and talent and potential

00:31:45.720 already embedded inside. And you can't just reconstruct them and build them differently.

00:31:49.940 All you can do is create an environment that nurtures those seeds and then you see where

00:31:56.800 it goes because it's up to them after that. Yes. Yes, exactly.

00:32:01.640 So there's another favorite one of mine. My wife liked this one a lot too, because she's been talking

00:32:05.740 about this for a long time, but I love how you really put this in a succinct aphorism.

00:32:09.520 Well, so in my collection of aphorisms, I have a giant list of things that in previous times and

00:32:31.100 cultures, people considered inefficient, dangerous, immoral. And it's just bananas.

00:32:37.680 What people will take into their mind to oppose? I mean, when postcards were introduced,

00:32:44.360 people were violently opposed to postcards. It's like, maybe you just don't like postcards.

00:32:51.080 You don't have to decide that they're immoral. And I remind myself of that when I'm thinking like,

00:32:57.120 oh, it's terrible that people are doing X, Y, Z. I'm like, well, maybe it's just because I don't

00:33:00.720 like to do X, Y, Z. So I don't understand why somebody else would like it.

00:33:04.080 Yeah. As a person who's been putting out articles and podcasts for almost 20 years,

00:33:09.920 you've probably experienced this too. There's people who are going to criticize you.

00:33:13.120 Yes.

00:33:13.600 And the way they frame their criticisms like, this is wrong and blah, blah, blah, blah. But then you'll

00:33:18.540 have people who say, I love what you're doing. This is great. I think it's the greatest thing in

00:33:23.160 the world. And so this aphorism reminds me of that. And it reminded my wife of a story from Ben and

00:33:28.580 Jerry's, the ice cream example. And one of the guys, Ben or Jerry was doing an interview and he

00:33:34.940 talked about how they would get letters from people saying, your chunks are too big. And this

00:33:40.460 is why the ice cream is bad and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's awful. I'm not going to buy

00:33:44.080 your ice cream anymore because your chunk's too big. But then they'd also get letters saying, oh,

00:33:47.940 I just love how big your chunks are. It's one of my favorite things about your ice cream. Keep doing

00:33:52.620 that. In fact, I want them bigger. And Ben or Jerry says, I wish I could just somehow swap the

00:33:58.280 letters so that the people who were complaining about the big chunks would get the letters from

00:34:03.500 the people who love the big chunks and then vice versa. So people could see like, oh, it's just

00:34:07.480 taste. There's nothing wrong with the ice cream. It's just that your taste doesn't suit and that's

00:34:11.200 fine. Yeah. Well, in terms of creativity, to your point, I always remind myself that a strong voice

00:34:17.860 repels as well as attracts. And that if you're so innocuous that nobody objects to you, you're

00:34:25.060 probably catching nobody's interest either because you're right. Everything, somebody doesn't like

00:34:31.360 something. One of the funniest tourist slogans, my whole family grew up in North Platte, Nebraska,

00:34:37.260 so I have a real fondness for Nebraska. And their tourist slogan for a period was, honestly,

00:34:45.340 it's not for everyone. And I think that's so funny because it's like, we love Nebraska,

00:34:50.880 you know? Um, but honestly, it's not, it's not for everyone. And, um, right. And so you can just

00:34:58.180 say like, that's just not my taste. You don't have to say like, oh, it's, there's something wrong with

00:35:03.240 that. The chunks are too big. The chunks are too small. It's like, I like a chunkier ice cream.

00:35:09.220 Yeah. I think it's so true. Um, another one that I liked by trying to save things for a special

00:35:14.820 occasion. We may squander them. Spices go stale, white shirts turn yellow, wine turns to vinegar.

00:35:22.060 Yeah. No, I mean, I have kind of a hoarding nature. I will save things like I'll buy a new

00:35:27.980 shirt and I'll save it, or I will get new stationery and I will save it. And I have to

00:35:34.300 remind my, it was one of my 10 personal commandments is to spend out, meaning like put things into use,

00:35:39.940 like use things up because by saving them, you're often wasting them.

00:35:46.480 Yeah. So true. Life is for living. Money's for spending. Use the good dishes. Yeah. China. Don't 0.95

00:35:52.380 save. Don't wait for it. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, that's a good lesson for adulthood to make it more

00:35:57.280 enjoyable. I had a pair of pants once that I loved so much that I saved them and wore them very

00:36:02.940 sparingly because I wanted to like keep them in really good shape. But then, you know, fashions

00:36:06.540 changed. And then all of a sudden I'm like, they're not great pants anymore. I could have

00:36:10.120 worn them like 10 times more than I did, but I felt like I had to hold them back. But I feel this

00:36:15.360 way creatively. I don't know if you ever have this where you're like, I can't put out all my good

00:36:19.960 ideas. Like if I put in all my good ideas, maybe I'll run out of ideas. Maybe I need to hold an idea

00:36:25.140 back. My sister, Elizabeth, who's the co-host of the Happier podcast with me, she's a television writer.

00:36:30.380 And she said, they always remind themselves, put every good idea in the pilot, put in every good idea that

00:36:35.460 you possibly can. Don't say like, oh, we'll put this in episode four because you may never get to

00:36:39.820 episode four. Use everything up right away and then trust that there will be more. So I think it's true

00:36:45.520 for the good dishes. It's literally true, but it's also true creatively, which is the more that we

00:36:51.900 create, the more we will create. All right. Here's another one that I liked. It's about, you know,

00:36:57.520 doing well in life, making a change in the world, an impact on the world. To respect us,

00:37:03.080 people must first notice us. We can't earn trust and admiration from the sidelines.

00:37:09.540 Yeah. I mean, maybe that's a little bit of a dark aphorism. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes people

00:37:15.460 are like, oh, I'm silently working away and nobody notices me. Why am I not getting a promotion? It's

00:37:21.420 like, I think you've answered your own question. Yeah. I'm sure you've noticed that as, you know,

00:37:26.480 with your career, putting out content, you can put out really great stuff, but if you're not

00:37:31.200 actually promoting it, you know, no one's going to know how great the stuff is that you're putting

00:37:35.080 out. I know. I know. I remind people of that all the time because they're like, well, I don't like

00:37:39.120 to do that work. I'm like, well, that is part of the work. That isn't like a icing on the cake.

00:37:45.220 If you want to reach people through your work, you have to do what needs to be done to reach them.

00:37:49.620 You got to hustle. You know, I think Ernest Hemingway is a good example of that. Like he

00:37:54.260 really dedicated to his craft of writing, but the guy knew how to do self-promotion.

00:37:59.960 Oh my gosh. He created a myth around him.

00:38:03.060 Oh, I mean, and that is, if you read biography of great artists, you usually see that they are

00:38:07.400 tremendously self-promotional. You know, it's not an accident that they are in the spotlight.

00:38:15.200 Well, yeah, there was a biography I read about Emerson. You know, we think of Emerson as this

00:38:21.500 kind of, you know, sage that he was kind of above self-promotion, but that guy hustled. Like he was

00:38:27.920 constantly promoting himself, getting himself out on the Lyceum circuit, speaking because he wanted

00:38:34.040 to make a name for himself. And Thoreau, he wasn't comfortable with that. And he didn't have the

00:38:41.380 success like in his lifetime that he wanted. He actually kind of felt bad about it. I think he

00:38:46.160 felt kind of bad that he didn't have the admiration that he thought he deserved. He was a great writer.

00:38:51.580 He had these great, great insights, but he just didn't want to promote himself. And Emerson would

00:38:55.680 get on and was like, you need to get out there, man. But he was like, I just don't want to do it.

00:38:59.020 And then, you know, Thoreau had to die. And then maybe a hundred years later, he became famous.

00:39:03.940 Well, you know, it's interesting. I've, for a long time, I've been wanting to learn more about

00:39:06.620 the transcendentalists. So you're inspiring me to dig up some book and read about them because I

00:39:11.420 know a little bit about them and I certainly admire their writing, but I don't really know

00:39:15.320 that much about their relationships. And that sounds really interesting.

00:39:18.920 Oh, they're interesting characters. There's just a lot of bickering between them and sort of

00:39:23.440 envy and comparison going on.

00:39:26.140 Well, didn't Thoreau live with Emerson for a while?

00:39:28.320 Yeah. Thoreau was his kid's babysitter, basically, and handyman. And they were like best friends,

00:39:34.800 but then they would have these falling outs. They're really interesting characters to read

00:39:39.400 about.

00:39:39.500 Oh, good. Okay. You've inspired me. I mean, as an aphorist, you would think I would have spent a

00:39:44.000 lot of time studying the transcendentalists because those characters are writing aphorisms

00:39:47.960 left and right. And I love their writing, but I have always wanted to know more about their

00:39:52.680 relationships. Okay. You've inspired me.

00:39:54.560 All right. So another one I liked kind of hit home to me at this point in my life, it is,

00:39:59.400 do you need more time or do you need to make a decision?

00:40:03.100 I remind myself of this all the time because the way that I postpone the difficult work of

00:40:08.340 decision-making is sort of saying like, oh, I need to consult someone about that,

00:40:12.780 or I need to talk to my husband about that, or I need to do more research about that. And it's like,

00:40:16.880 no, you don't. You just need to make a decision. It's just a form of procrastination.

00:40:20.940 Yeah. Usually you already know the answer.

00:40:23.920 Or you don't know the answer, but you know you need to just decide.

00:40:27.880 Yeah. I think that's a fair point. At that point, you probably just flip a coin.

00:40:31.140 You have to do something.

00:40:32.840 You have to do something.

00:40:33.900 Yeah. Okay. Another one that I liked. Oh yeah, this was, I really liked this one.

00:40:38.380 One is about if you have a decision to make and you don't know what to do,

00:40:41.700 you have a heuristic and aphorism for it. When uncertain about how to proceed,

00:40:46.560 make the choice that allows you to choose the bigger life.

00:40:50.200 Yes. This is extremely helpful. I would say of all my secrets of adulthood,

00:40:55.060 this is one of the ones that people most often will say to me has been useful to them. And I can't

00:41:00.880 even remember where I wrote about it first, maybe in better than before. Anyway, and I'll give an

00:41:05.820 example from my life where my daughters were begging for a dog and my husband was like, okay,

00:41:11.640 I'd get a dog. He grew up with cats, but he was open to it. But to me, it was a perfect balance

00:41:17.060 because on the one hand, I knew all the happiness research about a dog and how much dogs bring

00:41:21.920 happiness and actually even good health. I knew I had a dog growing up and I love my dog, but then

00:41:27.560 I thought, oh, it's all those errands and all those responsibilities. And then we have to worry about

00:41:32.740 the dog every time we want to leave town and we live in a New York city apartment. So it's like a

00:41:37.460 whole thing. And I just felt paralyzed because the pros and cons felt very equally balanced. And then I

00:41:43.880 thought, well, choose the bigger life. And then the answer was immediately obvious to me,

00:41:50.200 which was that for our family, the bigger life was the life with a dog. Now, somebody else might say,

00:41:55.300 no, the bigger life is the life without a dog because then you can travel, you can be spontaneous,

00:41:59.500 you have more money to spend, like you're freer. And so that might be the bigger life. But for us,

00:42:05.460 I was like, the bigger life is to get a dog. And we did. And we were so happy we got the dog.

00:42:09.900 Yeah. I find I have to be more intentional about that as I've gotten older. Because as you get

00:42:14.420 older, you kind of get complacent. You become a hobbit where you're just like, I just want to

00:42:17.960 stay in my little hobbit hole and not do any things that's comfortable. When I was younger,

00:42:21.960 it's like, oh yeah, go do big things because I got nothing to lose. As you're older, you're like,

00:42:26.600 oh man, if I do that, there's going to be a lot of complications. It's a risk. So yeah,

00:42:31.180 I need to make that my mantra. Choose the bigger life.

00:42:33.640 Yeah. Well, for me, relatedly, and this came to me after the book was already done. So I didn't

00:42:38.280 make it into the book. But I was realizing exactly what you were saying. I would have

00:42:42.440 opportunities to do things, fun things. And I'd be like, oh gosh, I just don't even want to deal

00:42:47.220 with scheduling it. It's like, we'll pick a day, then one of us will have to reschedule. And it's

00:42:51.260 this will be this whole thing. And then I'll have to figure out how to get there. And oh my gosh,

00:42:54.620 in the end, like, wouldn't I just rather stay home and read in bed? But then I thought,

00:42:58.960 scheduling is life. Like I say, I hate to schedule, but scheduling is life. Everything

00:43:04.740 that I want to do needs to go into my schedule. And if I'm not scheduling, then I am just staying

00:43:11.920 home and binge watching The Office, which is, you know, in a sense, my favorite thing to do and

00:43:16.220 certainly the easiest thing to do. But that's not a good life. Scheduling is life. So that's how I try

00:43:21.400 to embrace it for myself now. I like schedule. That's another great effort. Scheduling is life.

00:43:25.940 Scheduling is life. Volume two.

00:43:27.540 Volume two.

00:43:28.080 Scheduling is life. Adulthood, volume two. Yeah.

00:43:29.760 Let's do a few more because there's so many. How many did you include in the book?

00:43:33.780 I think there's a couple hundred.

00:43:34.980 Yeah. It's awesome. You can just flip to a page and like, here it is for you.

00:43:38.200 I thought this was an interesting one because I think it's true, but I couldn't figure out why

00:43:41.660 it's true. To understand a new place, visit a grocery store.

00:43:45.900 Oh, I just think this is just a fun thing to know. If you're in a new place, it's just fascinating to

00:43:51.980 visit the grocery store. Like what is the food? How is it presented? How is it different?

00:43:55.940 It just gives you an insight into a new place. It's a very fun thing to do.

00:44:00.620 Yeah. No, when we go to, our family would go to Vermont for the summer and we'd always go to the

00:44:06.360 first thing we do when we get there before we go to the Airbnb, stop by the local grocery store.

00:44:10.940 And it's always interesting to see what foods they have in New England that they don't have in Oklahoma.

00:44:16.840 It's like devil dogs are a thing in New England, not a thing in Oklahoma, like maple cream donuts

00:44:22.920 thing in Vermont, not a thing in Oklahoma.

00:44:25.500 Maple. Everything maple.

00:44:26.520 Everything maple.

00:44:26.940 What's funny because I remember when I went to college, I didn't realize that there were like

00:44:30.460 regional brands, that there would be brands that other people thought were huge that I had never

00:44:37.720 heard of, like Entenmann's. This is a thing. They may have it now, but in Missouri, when I grew up,

00:44:43.000 we didn't have Entenmann's. And everybody, when I got to college on the East coast, they were like,

00:44:47.880 how do you not know this? It was like not knowing, you know, Coke. They thought it was this ubiquitous

00:44:54.280 brand, but it, and so it was interesting. And then there were brands that I knew that they didn't

00:44:57.540 know. So it is, so it is. And that like maple, you're like, I'm in the land of maple now and

00:45:02.520 everything will be maple, maple, maple, or I'm in the land of lobster or I'm in the land of,

00:45:07.220 you know, whatever it might be. It's fun.

00:45:09.040 So here's another fun one that I agree with. Once a group includes five people,

00:45:14.640 a single conversation is very hard to maintain.

00:45:18.360 Yes. So you're reading now from the simple secrets of adulthood. So I have my transcendent

00:45:22.640 secrets of adulthood, which is most of the book, which are what I hope are like deep insights.

00:45:26.380 But as I was writing the book, because I just love hacks. I love a practical tip. I just couldn't

00:45:32.040 stop myself from making a list of those as well. And when I submitted my manuscript, I thought my editor

00:45:37.200 would be like, Gretchen, these simple secrets of adulthood just don't belong with the other ones

00:45:41.320 that are so much more transcendent. But she said, oh, these are fun. Let's include them. Like the one

00:45:45.720 about the grocery store or the one about the five people. This is something that I learned from writing

00:45:50.100 my book, Life in Five Senses. This is called the dinner party problem. It's a very well-established

00:45:54.120 psychological phenomenon that once a group includes more than four people, it will almost inevitably break

00:46:00.460 into smaller conversations unless you make enormous effort to keep people unified. And if you've ever been

00:46:05.100 to like a single topic dinner party or something, like you have to like tell people that that is

00:46:11.140 the rule and then really enforce it because people just will naturally break into smaller

00:46:15.400 conversations. So it's a useful thing to think about when you're, you know, approaching a social

00:46:21.360 occasion that that is something that you will encounter. I read in this, I agree. I've been in

00:46:26.880 conversations where there's more than five and it just doesn't work. But also I relate to this rule

00:46:31.820 because I was a waiter in college. I absolutely hated big tops, you know, like where people

00:46:39.660 get like 20 people and we had the smoosh tables together because it's just like, why are you doing

00:46:45.700 this? No one's talking to each other. You're only talking to the people in front of you and it makes

00:46:49.300 it harder for the waiter. And so whenever I see it. That is a great point. I guess it's, you want to

00:46:56.880 feel like you're together, but maybe you're like, you'll actually enjoy it more. Yes. You'd enjoy it

00:47:01.860 more. Cause after like, you know, two people over, like you have no idea what the other, what the

00:47:06.220 other people are saying. And it makes it also good talking across the table would be easier. So in a

00:47:12.000 way you're less, you feel like you have access to fewer people, but you might actually have access to

00:47:16.860 more. Yes. And it makes it, it'll make the experience better for you and the waiter. Cause the

00:47:21.420 waiter can actually, it's just easier to manage. So whenever I go in a restaurant, I see a big top,

00:47:26.720 I'm just like, ugh, people don't know what they're doing. What are they, they need to stop

00:47:30.240 that. That's my pet peeve. No big talk. But you know, but that's interesting because I do think

00:47:34.220 that our impulse is like, oh, well we all want to be together and we don't want anybody to feel

00:47:38.700 like they're stuck at the wrong table. It feels very high stakes. Yeah. You could be in the same

00:47:44.920 area. Right. You could be next to each other. Next to each other. You don't need to smoosh all the

00:47:48.800 tables together. Interesting. I like that. See, and there's room at the back of the book for people to

00:47:54.080 write their own secrets of adulthood. So that would be what like, you know, like I'm going to

00:47:58.660 write that down myself as a hack. So a lot of times reading these will inspire people to realize

00:48:04.720 that they have their own. All right. Last one. Cause I relate to this one a lot. If you don't

00:48:09.380 know what to do with yourself, go outside or go to sleep. I mean, I just feel like that works. That's

00:48:15.380 just like, that is to me one or the other or both. I always am going to feel better.

00:48:22.020 Yeah. I have this tendency. You probably have this tendency too. Everyone has this tendency

00:48:25.460 at nighttime, you're tired and then you get stuck on something that you're just upset about and

00:48:32.200 depressed about. And then because you're tired, you start ruminating and go down this death spiral

00:48:36.540 and you're blah, blah. And then my wife usually tell me, just go to bed, just go to bed. And then 1.00

00:48:40.340 in the morning, you feel great and you have the answer. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Well, Gretchen,

00:48:46.180 this has been a lot of fun. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:48:50.740 GretchenRubin.com. There's links there to my quizzes, the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast,

00:48:56.520 the books, all my books, my writing. I have a newsletter, Five Things Making Me Happy. I have an

00:49:03.700 app. I have products. I got all the things that I love to connect with people on social media. I love to

00:49:08.620 hear people's observations and questions and resources that they suggest. So follow me on

00:49:15.420 social media. I'm Gretchen Rubin in all the places. Fantastic. Well, Gretchen Rubin,

00:49:19.720 thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

00:49:23.360 My guest there is Gretchen Rubin. She's the author of the book, Secrets of Adulthood. It's

00:49:26.760 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about her work at

00:49:30.520 our website, GretchenRubin.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash Secrets of Adulthood,

00:49:35.840 where you can find links to resources. We delve deeper into this topic.

00:49:38.160 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at

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00:49:54.040 for men and women alike. It's a great way to support the show directly. You can learn more at

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00:50:02.440 you a podcast or Spotify. It helps that a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you.

00:50:05.880 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member if you think there's something out

00:50:09.460 of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:50:13.240 Remind you to not listen to anyone podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:50:16.480 Thank you.

00:50:28.220 Thank you.

00:50:32.140 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - May 06, 2025

20 Secrets of Adulthood

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