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Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Little Happier: A Secret Kept for Thousands of Years Inspires My Owns Secrets (of Adulthood)

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin / The Onward Project

Education, Health & Fitness, Self-improvement

4.713K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

During my daily Metropolitan Museum visits, an ancient marble sculpture connected to the Eleusinian Mysteries—one of history's best-kept secrets—inspired me to start a major creative project, “Secrets of Adulthood.”

Resources & links related to this episode:

Get in touch: [email protected]

Visit Gretchen's website to learn more about Gretchen's best-selling books, products from The Happiness Project Collection, and the Happier app.

Find the transcript for this episode on the episode details page in the Apple Podcasts app. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The weather is warming up and it is time for picnics. At Whole Foods Market, you can save every day.

0:06.3

Look for the yellow low price signs that help you save money without compromising the quality you expect from Whole Foods Market.

0:13.7

Find them with their responsibly farmed Atlantic salmon, no antibiotics ever ground beef, and bonelessless chicken breasts plus more throughout the store yellow

0:23.6

really means savings at whole foods market because their sale signs are also yellow so basically

0:29.6

wherever you see yellow you know you're saving money save on the best of spring with great

0:35.1

everyday prices at Whole Foods Market.

0:40.5

Lemonada

0:41.2

I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier.

0:48.0

Ever since I started researching my book Life in Five Senses, I visited the Metropolitan Museum

0:53.4

every day. On one visit, for something to do,

0:56.8

I visited a marble sculpture from the site of the L. Eucinian Mysteries. I have long been fascinated

1:03.6

by the L. Eucinian Mysteries. More than three and a half thousand years ago, for more than

1:09.3

a thousand years, from about 1600 BCE to 392C,

1:14.4

people traveled to Elusis in Greece for a nine-day initiation that culminated in the revelation

1:22.4

of a great secret. What fascinates me is that even though countless people were initiated over

1:32.1

centuries, no one ever betrayed the secret. Even today, all we know is that there were things

1:42.9

recited, things shown, and things perform.

1:48.5

This is extraordinary, because it's very hard to keep a big secret.

1:55.4

As I gazed at the marble relief of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, standing with a boy,

2:02.2

are reflected on this aspect of human nature. Whether it's a speakeasy, a gossip session, an Agatha Christie novel,

2:08.4

a friend's medicine cabinet, research into the origins of the universe, or the Elysinian mysteries,

2:14.7

we all want to learn the secret. I reflected, keeping information secret

...

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