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

When I think about my own happiness and when I talk to other people about happiness,

I often find myself thinking about regret.

Sometimes when I'm considering a course of action, I think about what all regret or not

regret in the future.

What would my future self think?

Along those lines, one major benefit of doing our best is that it alleviates potential

regret.

If I can tell myself, well, I did the very best I could, I feel less regret.

Say with my book 40 ways to look at JFK.

That book did not, as they diplomatically say in the book business, find its audience.

And yet I loved writing that book so much that I can't regret doing it.

And I made that book the best book that I possibly could.

So I don't regret anything I did or didn't do.

Lately, I've been reading a lot of the work of writer Amy Tan.

I was very struck by a passage from her essay, Inferior Decorating, from the book, The

Opposite of Fate, Memories of a Writing Life.

Amy Tan's first novel, The Joy Luck Club, had been a gigantic hit.

In this essay, she writes about working on her second novel, The Kitchen God's Life.

She writes,

I chose an unnamed goddess while writing my then entitled Second Book.

I didn't think it was good manners to ask her for anything as crass as good reviews

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