Welcome to week 24 of the Happiness Project.
This month we are working on: Making Time for Friends.
So far we have worked on: Remembering Birthdays, Being Generous, Showing Up, and now we will add: Don't Gossip. Corresponding reading pages: 155-156.
Gretchen says: Long-term happiness requires you to give up something that brings happiness in the short term. A good example of this is Gossip.
She does say that gossip plays an important social role because it reinforces community values- we often gossip about someone violating social and moral codes.
Even though it has its part in our worlds, it's not a very nice thing to do. Gretchen noticed that even while she enjoyed gossiping with her friends it made her feel unhappy in the end.
So, she vowed to stop gossiping. She took this one step further and decided to stop listening to gossip.
When she gave up gossip, she realized how much she had been gossiping.
She then noticed that she felt she had a free pass to gossip to her husband and tried to curb that as well.
Fascinating thing she learned: a phenomenon called "spontaneious trait transference. This means that people unintentionally transfer to me the traits I ascribe to other people.
For ex: If I tell Jean that Pat is arrogant, unconsciously Jean associates arrogance with me.
This week's challenge: Don't Gossip.
Thought for the week: What I say about other people sticks to me. Do well to say only good things.
This month we are working on: Making Time for Friends.
So far we have worked on: Remembering Birthdays, Being Generous, Showing Up, and now we will add: Don't Gossip. Corresponding reading pages: 155-156.
Gretchen says: Long-term happiness requires you to give up something that brings happiness in the short term. A good example of this is Gossip.
She does say that gossip plays an important social role because it reinforces community values- we often gossip about someone violating social and moral codes.
Even though it has its part in our worlds, it's not a very nice thing to do. Gretchen noticed that even while she enjoyed gossiping with her friends it made her feel unhappy in the end.
So, she vowed to stop gossiping. She took this one step further and decided to stop listening to gossip.
When she gave up gossip, she realized how much she had been gossiping.
She then noticed that she felt she had a free pass to gossip to her husband and tried to curb that as well.
Fascinating thing she learned: a phenomenon called "spontaneious trait transference. This means that people unintentionally transfer to me the traits I ascribe to other people.
For ex: If I tell Jean that Pat is arrogant, unconsciously Jean associates arrogance with me.
This week's challenge: Don't Gossip.
Thought for the week: What I say about other people sticks to me. Do well to say only good things.
But I do have to work on that one.
