Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we talk about strategies and tips for making

our lives happier, healthier, more productive and more creative.

This week we'll talk about why you might choose your TV theme song and we're going to discuss

many terrific listener answers to a listener question about how to handle being laid off.

I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, and human nature.

I'm in New York City and with me is my sister Elizabeth Kraft, who gave me the idea for my TV

theme song. That's me Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer, living in LA and Gretchen.

I will say you definitely don't want to hear me sing a TV song.

You can discuss it but I won't be singing. Yeah, you and me both sister.

But before we jump in, we got a couple especially interesting updates from listeners that we

wanted to share. One comes from Sarah, who's in Kansas City, our hometown. That's very exciting

on the Kansas side. And this one I thought was so funny. She writes, I love the podcast and have

listened since day one and our mutual friend Mindy told me about it. I hope we love Mindy.

And she writes, in one of the recent episodes, 2 to 4, you talked about made up words. Here is one

I've used for years, an obligation, which I coined when happening to go on an obligatory vacation,

i.e. to see relatives or something you normally might not choose to do, but feel obligated.

So that's the obligation. I love that. That is so funny. Is that great? Yeah, I love it.

And then Gretchen, we heard from Denise on the subject of snooze alarm.

I heard the podcast episode with the person who struggled with her snooze alarm.

This was a problem I had for many years. Sometimes I would hit it for hours and I always started my day

rushed and frustrated. I bought an old-fashioned battery alarm clock that doesn't have a snooze button,

the kind with the loud bells on top. I know when that alarm goes off, there is no option to do

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