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This year, I am focused on

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saving and investing, but I still

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want to do things like travel.

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NerdWallet lets you compare top travel

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credit cards side by side to

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maximize your spending, some even

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offering 10x points on your spending,

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which means you could end up

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with a free flight or maybe

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a better hotel room. So what

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could future you do with smarter

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financial decisions? Compare and find smarter

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credit cards, savings accounts, and more

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today at nerdwallet.com. NerdWallet.

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Finance Smarter. Reminder, credit

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is subject to lender approval and

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terms apply. I'm

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Gretchen Rubin and this is A

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Little Happier, where each week I

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take a few minutes to reflect

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on an experience, highlight interesting new

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research, or share something funny. There's

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a certain curious kind of experience

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that often happens to me. Something

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will happen, or I'll

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read something, or a friend will

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tell me a story, or

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I'll witness something, and

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it will hit me with tremendous force.

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It will be filled with meaning,

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but often I don't know what that

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meaning is. I don't

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understand the symbolism. I don't see

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the pattern. I can't grasp

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the lesson. I'll

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puzzle over these episodes for

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years. For instance,

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that's how I got my insight into

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the four tendencies. A friend told me,

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it's weird. I know I'm happier when I

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exercise, and when I was in high school,

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I was on the track team and I

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never missed track practice, so why can't

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I go running now? Well,

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why? I could think of

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many possible answers, but what truly made the

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difference? I thought and thought

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and thought about it, and along

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with other patterns I'd noticed, that

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comment led me to my breakthrough

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to create my four tendencies personality

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framework. Here's

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another story that I've reflected

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on for years. When

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I was in law school, I had a friend,

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a fellow law student, who had a girlfriend. They'd

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been together for two or three years.

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She lived in another city, but visited

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him in law school fairly regularly, and

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she seemed very nice. And

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for months, my friend and his girlfriend were

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arguing about whether or not to get engaged.

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They were really struggling with the decision, whether

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or not to do it, the timing, all

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of it. Finally, they

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got engaged. And almost

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immediately, they broke up, very

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amicably. This astonished

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me. I asked my friend,

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I don't get it. You're

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so in love that you're thinking of getting

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married, and then you get engaged, and then

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you break up. What happened? He

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shrugged and said, for the last several months,

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all we talked about was whether or not to

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get engaged. That question was

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what we had in common. And once it

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was settled, we realized that we didn't actually

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want to be married. I

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think about this story because I'm not sure what

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the lesson is. Is

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the lesson that some relationships are

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founded on conflict, and if the

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conflict is solved, the relationship loses

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its hold? Is

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the lesson that we can be distracted

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and confused by uncertainty, but

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certainty brings clarity? Is

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the lesson that sometimes we want what

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we can't have, and once we get

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it, we don't want it anymore?

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Probably this incident holds many meanings,

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and that's why I've remembered it for so long.

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I'm Gretchen Rubin, and I hope this makes

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your week a little happier.