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The sub-head on this article — “My clinical work has shown me that happiness is a ghost that’s not worth pursuing – there are far wiser goals in life” — begs the question: What is worth pursuing? The article argues for “reasonable contentment,” which is sort of happiness lite. As in a balance of happiness with unhappiness with neutral moments in between. You don’t need to really pursue reasonable contentment in the same way you need to pursue happiness (or make yourself happy). Reasonable contentment is accepting what is.

I don’t know if happiness is not worth pursuing at all. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have an impetus to travel, view art, eat good food, engage in crafts, or engage in thousands of other actions that are all about pursuing happiness. We don’t shell out money for a restaurant meal we think will make us reasonably content. We can get that from a bowl of cereal at home. Why spend hours in a car, driving to visit someone, when you can achieve reasonable contentment with a FaceTime call?

What do you think of the argument?

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Beorn and I are currently in a standoff about his water bottle. My parents watched him while we were away. When I dropped him off at their house, it was clear that the water bottle was missing the o-ring that went inside. It had dropped into the sink in my haste, and I walked out of my home without noticing.

So, I ran to a nearby pet store and bought a new water bottle. Beorn tried it, realized it was not his normal water bottle, and immediately rejected it. Beorn, like me, does not like change.

But it was arguably a better water bottle.

While we were away, he refused the new bottle, and my parents indulged him by wetting his vegetables and giving him cucumber slices. The pig is so spoiled when he goes over there, so much so that he completely ignores us the moment he’s with his grandparents.

We brought him home, and he refused the new water bottle. So, we have entered a standoff. I reassembled the old water bottle, and I will likely cave today because he has a stronger will than I do. But I cannot believe how long he’s willing to refuse the water bottle just because it is new and shiny and not dented from years of chewing on the end.

That pretty much sums up my life.

We took a trip, and I thought I did a pretty good job setting myself up for an easy landing when I returned. I’d just stroll back into my life — work and home — as if I paused in the middle of a sentence.

Except that is never what happens when you take a trip. You come back to a mound of emails that were comprehensible when you first read them while away, but now you’ve forgotten the context when you go to respond. And you have a nagging suspicion that things are falling through the cracks.

So I’m undigging. And I’ll be back in a day or two with stories.

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she reads that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better at doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from December.

The Mystery Guest (Nita Prose): I felt the same way about the second book in the series as I did about the first book. I liked it. I’m glad I read it. I wasn’t wowed by it. If you liked the first book, this one felt identical.

West Heart Kill (Dann McDorman): I’ll start with the only negative thing about this book: It didn’t stick the landing. It promised a big, clever reveal, and it wasn’t. So why did I give this book five stars? Because up until that point, it was Knives Out + Ice Storm + Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. And I really liked Knives Out. So I loved this book.

The Heir Affair (Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan): I was saving this book for a rainy day, and I was in a bit of a reading lull — emotionally — so I decided to break out the story. It meandered all over the place, and the infertility stuff ranged from moving to offensive. But it was exactly what I needed at the right time. Is it great art? No. But neither is People magazine, and I love that, too.

The Windsor Knot (S.J. Bennett): I was both drawn to and suspicious of this series. Queen Elizabeth solving crimes? Would the whole thing be silly? But no; this is like Queen Elizabeth in the Crown — a replica of the woman but feeling true(ish) to life. How does she realistically solve crimes? You’ll have to read to find out. But this was such a delightful book that I immediately continued to the next book in the series.

What did you read last month?

I recently learned about the 90-9-1 rule: “In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.”

So what you see online (mostly) is what 1% of the users think/feel because they contribute to the conversation, whereas 90% of people think silently or talk offline. They may or may not agree with the 1%’s postings. And 9% are posting, but we don’t know if the 1% influences them because they believe it to be the majority opinion.

I wonder if social media has impacted the efficacy of surveys because people read the 1%’s opinion before they can take in the facts and form their own thoughts. A little scary to think about how a tiny fraction of people can shape the conversation on and offline.