Read The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections for Free Online Page A

word because it is not a destination you arrive at or a sustainable state of being. It’s a feeling that you experience, just like any other, and it comes and goes. You can generate it, but you can’t keep it; you can make it, but not necessarily hold on to it.
    Catherine and I don’t even think happiness is necessarily the right word for what we’re pursuing. We joke that it’s “the H word” because it can be a negative if women think it’s the Holy Grail. Instead of pursuing “happiness” as some permanent state, we want you to appreciate the moments when it eludes you, as well as those when you experience it.
    My word for happiness is gratitude , as in I am grateful for all of the gifts, tangible and intangible, bestowed upon me. When I’m not feeling grateful for all that I have, I realize that I’m being childish or spoiled. For Catherine the word is contentment . She tries to appreciate and be present in the flow of life, in everyday moments. When she’s able to do that, not being un happy is enough. Being okay with how things are is the real gift, the mind-set that brings us to a higher place and purpose.
    Feeling appreciative of the good things you have is what leads to experiencing more of whatever you want to call it: contentment, gratitude or—okay—happiness. It’s the general feeling of a positive emotion we are going for here, not the label you use to describe it. The goal isn’t necessarily to be happy, but to feel happier no matter what else may be going wrong.
    Any author who writes a book claiming to be able to make the reader happy , happier , or able to find happiness is setting herself up for failure. We are not actually going to make you happy, since the only person who can make you do anything is you. Catherine tells her favorite shrink joke here: How many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.
    So we want to come clean right now: We are not going to make you happy. Only you can do that.
    If the unexamined life isn’t worth living, and the examined life is full of foibles, the most evolved woman examines her life, sees the flaws, and can put them into perspective. I love this bit of wisdom: “The fool thinks he’s a genius and the genius thinks he’s a fool.”
    Our corollary: The unhappy woman believes she should be happy all the time. The happy woman believes that there will be times when she is unhappy.
    Which woman are you?

4
Draw Your Emotional House
    T he first step in figuring out your inner architecture is to draw your emotional house. You can do this in your head, or with a pen and paper. We’ve always loved markers and sketch pads, so we encourage you to commit to a piece of paper for this project. (We promise it’ll be fun.) One note: Over time, you may need to redraw the walls, since as you evolve so will your house.
    The most useful model may be a cross section where all the rooms are exposed at once, like a dollhouse. We like to draw a three-story house with nine rooms. In our house, the basement and attic lie below and above the other rooms, and on the first floor you’ll find the family room, living room, kitchen, and office, since those are the most public spaces. Upstairs lie the master bedroom, the bathroom, and the child’s room, since those are more intimately connected.
    Neither Catherine nor I live in houses with many stories and nine rooms. We live in New York City apartments, and you know how cramped those are! But trust us, you need a room for every area of your emotional life, and this drawing doesn’t necessarily reflect your actual abode.
    Now make a list of all the rooms that will be in your house—include the basics (bathroom, kitchen, etc.) and your specifics (kid’s room or office), each corresponding to an area of your life. You may add or subtract a room, depending on your stage right now. So if you know you don’t want kids, the second bedroom could be a guest room or a place you