0:00

Robert Half research indicates 9

0:03

out of 10 hiring managers are

0:05

having difficulty hiring. If you have

0:07

open roles, chances are you're feeling

0:09

this too. That's

0:11

why you need Robert Half. Our

0:14

specialized recruiting professionals engage with

0:16

our proprietary AI to connect

0:19

businesses of all sizes with

0:21

highly skilled talent in finance

0:23

and accounting, technology, marketing and

0:26

creative, legal, and administrative and

0:28

customer support. At Robert Half,

0:31

we know talent. Visit

0:33

roberthalf.com today. I'm

0:36

Gretchen Rubin and this is A Little

0:38

Happier, where each week I take a

0:40

few minutes to reflect on an experience,

0:42

share something funny, tell a story. And

0:45

this week I want to talk about

0:48

something that I found delightful. I

0:51

write about happiness, good habits,

0:53

the five senses, but really

0:55

my subject is human nature.

0:58

That is the subject that fascinates me.

1:01

So one question I often ask myself

1:04

is, what in

1:06

human nature seems immutable?

1:09

What doesn't change, even

1:11

as culture changes? The

1:14

answer is not as much

1:16

as you'd think. But

1:19

sometimes I see little examples of how

1:21

some quirk of human nature shows up

1:23

over and over and over again. And

1:26

here's an example that charms me. When

1:30

my daughter, Eleanor, was little, she

1:32

had a special sippy cup that

1:34

she loved. It was purple with

1:36

a yellow lid and persuading her

1:38

to relinquish that sippy cup was

1:40

one of the major triumphs of

1:43

my time as the parent of

1:45

young children. Eleanor really

1:47

loved that sippy cup. And

1:51

recently I learned that researchers have

1:53

figured out that all the way

1:55

back to the Bronze Age and

1:58

maybe even longer ago. than

2:00

that. Parents used clay

2:02

sippy cups to help feed their

2:05

babies and young children. And

2:07

the thing that really turned me is

2:10

that some of these pottery vessels that

2:12

had been found are in

2:14

the shapes of animals. I

2:16

saw one cup that stood on two

2:18

little feet and had a head with

2:21

big ears sticking out from it. I love

2:24

to think of these parents 3,000

2:26

years ago who were delighting their

2:28

children with the kind of animal

2:30

shapes that we use with our

2:33

children today. I'll post

2:35

a link in the show notes if you'd like

2:37

to read more about the bronze-aged sippy cups and

2:40

if you'd like to see some of their designs

2:42

for yourself. Many

2:44

things change but some

2:46

things don't change. I'm

2:48

Gretchen Rubin and I hope this makes your week

2:51

a little happier.