On Fridays I will address a question related to depression and find the answer from an expert. If you have a question you want answered, please ask it on the combox of this post, and I’ll try my best to do some research and feature it in an upcoming Friday post.

On Friday, I usually like to feature the wisdom of a fellow blogger or author or smartie pants. But I wanted to share the interview that Gretchen Rubin, creator of The Happiness Project (her blog and a forthcoming book) and the author of several bestselling books, did with me. She asked some great questions that had me thinking hard on how, exactly, I try to stay happy.

I’m including the first three. For the rest of the interview, go to her smart site.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?

Therese: Exercise is crucial for me. Bad things happen to my brain without it. Even more powerful is exercise outside. I almost always think better when I’m running, biking, hiking, or kayaking in nature. Especially when I get to my favorite stretch of my run–where the campus of the Unites States Naval Academy follows the Severn River–I can help but breathe a prayer of gratitude.

Gretchen: What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?

Therese: That success doesn’t guarantee happiness. In fact, it can often times get in the way. I think my real “happiness breakthrough” came the morning I cried to my mentor and good friend Mike over the phone as I sat in a room at Johns Hopkins Psych Unit. I bemoaned to him how I went from a success to a failure within a year, and that I didn’t know how to get back my accolades. He told me they didn’t matter. Success didn’t matter. Writing didn’t matter. None of it. And the miracle of that moment was that I could hear his sincerity and believe him. I imagined the worst–my never being able to work again, to function like I used to–and there I was … okay, and loved by my husband, mom, and a few friends. And that was more than enough.

Gretchen: Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?

Therese: Comparing! I try to remember the wisdom in “compare and despair,” or to not compare my insides with another person’s outsides. But I do it over and over and over again. And I always seem to come up short. Which is why, if I really HAVE to compare, I should take Helen Keller’s advice: “Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.”

To continue reading the interview, click here.

Visit Gretchen’s website by clicking here.

To read more Beyond Blue, go to http://blog.beliefnet.com/beyondblue, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.