“To this day, the truest feeling of joy I have ever known is the door opening at a friend’s house to reveal my father — in his tweed overcoat– there to rescue me from a bad play date.”

— Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl

This rang true for me, because I have to admit: Of my whole life, one of my most purely joyous memories is when a student came to our high school chemistry lab to tell us that field hockey practice was cancelled for the day, because the sprinklers had been running all night, so our cleats would have torn up the grass. I was so happy.

Do you have a memory like that — of such great happiness, over such a small thing?

Gretchen Rubin is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Happiness Project—an account of the year she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier—and the recently released Happier at Home and Better Than Before. On her popular blog, The Happiness Project, she reports on her daily adventures in the pursuit of happiness. For more doses of happiness and other happenings, follow Gretchen on Facebook and Twitter.

Image courtesy of Cecil Vedemil.