Which do you think would make you happier, receiving a $5,000 pay raise or having a friend of a friend of a friend who is generally happy?
According to a recent survey conducted at Harvard Medical School, the friend of a friend of a friend (aka someone you’ve never met) being happy increases the chance of you being happier three times more than if you got the $5,000 raise.
The study found that if a friend of a friend of a friend is happy, you have a six percent chance of being happier (versus two percent caused by a $5,000 pay raise). If it’s a friend of a friend who’s happy, the odds jump to 10 percent, and if it’s a direct friend, 15 percent.
They also discovered that this works for sour moods as well, though not as strongly. Each “unhappy connection” decreased the chance of a person being happy by seven percent. That means if you have 14 friends, friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends who are unhappy, you are 98% more likely to be unhappy.
How does that affect you? Well in addition to underscoring the importance of surrounding yourself with people who are generally happy, it also emphasizes the impact you have on other people. When you’re happy, you increase the liklihood of your friends being happy by 15 percent (and people you don’t even know by six percent)!
So if not for yourself, than for the good of mankind (that might be a slight exaggeration), be happy.
A recent study shows that being optimistic may lead to living longer. In a study of 100,000 women, those rated optimistic were 14% less likely to die than pessimists during the study’s first eight years.
Why do optimists live longer? The science doesn’t quite tell us but one theory presented is that “Optimists have strong social networks and handle stress better.” Or perhaps it’s that people tend to do things longer when they really enjoy what they’re doing, and that includes living.
Source: Do Good, Feel Good… Be Well. Reader’s Digest, June 2009.
I spent the last week in the wilderness of Michigan shooting a short film with a few friends. While standing there, stoking a fire in the forest underneath the stars, I thought back to what it must have been like for our ancestors. What was life like without Blackberries, email and task lists?
Are we any happier now than the frontiersman were years ago? The answer is up to you. There were people living and loving life back then as there are today and I’m sure they also had people who only complained about having to eat deer yet again.
Sometimes we get so caught in our current world we forget that it’s possible to be happy without being so busy–if our ancestors could do it, we can too. Just as it was back then, the choice is up to you. Maybe we all need to stand in the woods every now and then to remind ourselves of that.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
But you wouldn’t know,
‘Cuz you have too much to do.
When you die, it’s not going to matter how much you were able to get done in a day–the 16-hours you spend working each day doesn’t get you any extra credit.
What will matter? The relationships you developed, the experiences you had, and the emotions you felt.
So stop reading this blog post and do something for yourself, even if it’s only for five minutes. Not only will you come back re-energized, but you’ll actually be living your life.
Go… NOW!
