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

One of the things that has happened to me as I've become a writer

is I've met a lot of other writers and as I've gotten to know a lot of other writers,

I often find myself in the odd position of having read the intimate memoir

of someone I know in real life. Sometimes it's just an acquaintance, somebody I've met once or twice.

Sometimes it's somebody that I've grown to know quite well and I'm always astonished

by even the people that I think I know well, how little I knew about their lives and their past,

and how much reading their memoir changed the way I looked at them.

And the big lesson I've taken from reading people's memoirs is cut people slack.

We just don't know what's going on in other people's lives or what they're dealing with.

And every time I read a memoir, I remind myself, gosh, we've got to be kind to each other.

Cut people slack. I'm Gretchen Rubin and I hope this makes your week a little happier.