Submitted by Dr. Robert F. Lane on
TO BE HAPPY is a frequent item on the "Most Important List". Amazingly there is some solid data on that in a TED talk by Robert Waldinger entitled Happiness. He first reports a survey of millennials asked to list their major goals in life. 70% said it was to get rich. 50% included to become famous.
He then contrasted those answers with the results from the recently reported Harvard Study of Adult Development on what actually produced happiness in real lives. It tracked the lives of teenagers from 1938 for 75 yrs into old age. 738 men were recruited of which 60 are still alive in their 90's. There were 2 groups, one half were privileged by their genes and social stature to go to Harvard and the other half just the opposite. They were troubled, disadvantaged youth from Boston tenement communities. For both groups health, employment, family relationships, and economic/social circumstances and acheivements were all tracked in detail plus their attitudes and opinions.
A universal truth was found across both groups that was totally unrelated to wealth and fame, genes, social status or financial success. It applies directly to you and me wherever we find ourselves amid the invariable challenges and sufferings of this life.
For them it was that GOOD RELATIONSHIPS keep them healthier and happier more than any other single or group of factors. Those with strong family and social relationships prospered! And curiously brain function and memory were better preserved, pain and suffering better tolerated. Whoa - sign me up.
The key to happiness was good, secure, attached relationships-and not just the ones that were free of bickering or disagreement, rather the ones that could be counted on when the chips are down irrespective of the bumps and grinds along the way. Relationships are messy - even the good ones. They all take work but that is completely under our control ---and we like control!
Aloneness and loneliness are toxic! So cultivate new friendships and reconnect with old ones. Reconnect with family. Overcome old grudges and feuds. Forgiveness is up to each of us - and painless - although everyone has to do it first to discover that.
Another universal truth is that a GRATEFUL HEART is a happy heart. Ponder all the things you are grateful for. Name them. List them. Over and over . Cultivate a grateful heart and watch your contentment grow. That is totally under our control.
When there are issues in our lives that are out of our control like disease, we must not pass up pursuit of the ones that are in our control: nurture relationships and cultivate a grateful heart!
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