I discovered Gretchen Rubin several years ago when she was still researching for her book “The Happiness Project“. I’ll admit I lost track of her again until just recently when I found her on Forbes.com. Today she posted a video discussing television over-use as a “pigeon of discontent”, so I decided to look into it further. I found her website, where she discusses in more detail the concept of “pigeons of discontent” as the enemy of the “bluebird of happiness”. It’s worth watching.
We all have our pigeons; things that bring us down or distract us from being happier, but we never quite seem to get around to doing something about. Right now for me it’s my desk. It’s a mess. I hate working there, and it irritates me that I’ve not cleaned it for so long. It also bugs me that at least half of the clutter is not mine. But do I do anything about it? No. I just let it roost in my psyche and leave droppings all over the place.
I should do something about that.