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

One of my favorite things about human nature is that people are interested in such different things.

No matter how improbable a subject seems to me, people have written books about it,

people have studied it, they're pursuing it in their careers,

they go to three-day conferences about it.

And I love the fact that people can be so swept up in something

that wouldn't be appealing to me.

And I have never forgotten going to a friend's birthday party

and talking to a woman I'd never met before.

She mentioned that she had recently gone through a big career transition.

And I said, well, what was that?

And she said, I love my job as a lawyer to go to history grad school

to study the Scottish Enlightenment.

Then, clearly trying not to appear too braggy, she added modestly,

oh, it's not as glamorous as it sounds.

And I laughed with the light when I heard that.

Really?

It's not as glamorous as it sounds.

She thought I would be eaten up with envy

upon hearing what she was doing.

It made me so happy to encounter someone so excited about what she was doing

that she literally couldn't imagine

...