Why I'd Rather Be Enthusiastic Than Confident.

Lately, I've been thinking about enthusiasm. I've become increasingly convinced of the importance of enthusiasm to happiness.

Enthusiasm is energetic, positive, generous, and social. It's outward-turning and engaged. It's kind of goofy.

As one of my happiness-project experiments, I tried putting sticky notes throughout the apartment with two key adjectives to keep in mind as I went through my day. In my office, the sticky note originally said, "Creative and confident." But as I thought...