I'm Grachan Rubin and this is a little happier. One of my passions in life is children's literature,

and so of course I am a huge Harry Potter fan. The other night my 19 year old daughter Eliza was in

the mood for a Harry Potter movie, so we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie for

about the millionth time. And in the movie there's a particular moment that passes in a flash,

and that disappoints me every time it happens. Because for me in the book, this moment is one of

the emotional highlights of the entire series. So spoiler alert, I am going to talk about a plot

point from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so be warned. And I looked up the passage to reread it

to see what happens in the book, and I realized that surprise. This is a moment that has tremendous

relevance to happiness. As so often happens with this kind of memorable passage, I saw that the

metaphoric meaning was very powerful and stunningly obvious once I focused my attention on it.

So to set the scene for you, this is in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and although he is too

young to be an official participant against his will, Harry Potter has been illegally entered as one

of the four participants in the dangerous tri-wizard tournament, and now he's magically bound to

participate. And the first task in this tournament is to steal a golden egg from a dragon without being

killed. Now beforehand, one of Harry's professors, Matt Imoody, tries to give Harry some advice

without giving away the exact nature of the task, which by the way Harry already knows,

and Moody says to Harry, I don't show favoritism me, I'm just going to give you some good general

advice. The first bit is play to your strengths. I haven't got any, said Harry, before he could stop

himself. Excuse me, growled Moody, you've got strength, if I say you've got them, think now.

What are you best at? And then the passage goes on, and Matt Imoody continues, my second piece of

general advice, said Moody loudly, interrupting him, is to use a nice simple spell that will enable

you to get what you need. Harry realizes that he's best at the wizard's sport quidditch, where he's a

...