Best Thing I Heard All Week – Happier with Gretchen Rubin

The best thing I heard this week was Episode 61 of the Happier Podcast with Gretchen Rubin. This week’s podcast had several topics that made me think about things in a different light, which I think is always the sign of time well-spent. The two topics specifically were over-apologizing and identifying your preference for familiarity versus novelty.

The discussion on over-apologizing was so intriguing to me because I realized I do it often. Just saying “sorry” all the time, without having done something that merits an apology. For example, I think I must say sorry 10 times per grocery trip any time I have a near run-in with another cart. It feels like something should be said, but why is it “sorry”? It doesn’t really make sense. I really enjoyed Gretchen and Elizabeth’s (her sister and sidekick) back and forth on the subject. At one point, Elizabeth pointed out that by saying sorry in hopes to stick in a polite word, you are actually inconveniencing the other person because they know have to “forgive” you for this non-event. Interesting and valid point, I thought. Is it the worst thing in the world? I don’t think so. But can we do better? Probably. With this in mind, I headed out to the grocery store to try not to say “sorry” with every near-miss of a cart. How did I do? I ended up saying it twice! It’s like a nervous tic.

If this is something you don’t do, maybe you’ve never noticed. This commercial captures it perfectly. I will say that although I DO want to stop overusing the word “sorry”, I am NOT a fan of the phrase “NOT sorry”. What is up with that?

The Happier ladies also touched on the subject of being a familiarity or novelty lover and how knowing this about yourself can help guide your habit formation. This is one of the reasons I loved Gretchen Rubin’s book, “Better Than Before” so much. In fact, it was one of my Top 3 Books from 2015. Her perspective is that to establish good habits, you have to know yourself and all your idiosyncrasies. Once you know them, you can use that knowledge to your advantage. Some of the ones covered in the book are: simplicity versus abundance lover, moderator versus abstainer, marathoner versus sprinter, owl versus lark, and familiarity versus novelty lover. So in this episode, they discussed the differences of people being more drawn to familiarity or novelty. Which one do you think you are? I was torn, because I am a homebody that very much sticks to routine. But at the same time, I cannot re-read a book, re-watch a TV episode or a movie I have already seen before. I constantly itch to travel to see new places. So kind of a mix depending on what it is. Gretchen and Elizabeth had a fun discussion around the two, and I was relieved to hear them say they were split in different areas of their lives too.

The Happier podcast is a pretty “solid” listen every week. Not necessarily ground-breaking, but I do appreciate the self-reflective parts of it. This week’s episode was a good one for that. So take a listen and let me know what you think!

Posted by Ale & filed under Learning, Podcasts. This post has 2 comments.