A World Happiness Database study found that
People with Close Friendships are happier!
Three significant factors make the formation of a friendship possible:
- proximity - being near enough to see each other or do things together;
- repeatedly encountering - informally and without making special plans to see each other
- opportunities to share ideas and personal feelings with each other.
A Happy Friendship is
unconditional, acceptance, loyalty, and commitment to one another. Affirmation, availability, prayer,openness, honesty,sensitivity, confidentiality and accountability.
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not
born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world
is born."
We get a little complicated when it
comes to happiness—and then tend to ruin the moment. You want, desire,
wish, crave for nothing but…happiness. You seek it everywhere from TV to
partners to chocolate to raises to People Magazine to eyelash extension parlors. But when you finally feel it then instead of enjoying it, you sometimes
- feel guilty
- fall asleep
- worry you’re going to lose the ____ (fill in the blank: partner, money) that’s making us happy
- get anxious because you’re trying to hold onto the ____ (fill in the blank)
- answer your cell phone
- worry you’re getting fat
- get drunk
- get depressed because you feel you just don't deserve it
- worry you're wasting your time and start answering emails
- start mourning now because you know the moment will end
- instagram, tweet, facebook, selfie and pinterest the moment to death
- suddenly get consumed by the all-consuming realization that we're All. Going. To. Die.
The
drama unfolds like a cheap soap opera and the good news is: You can
turn it off.
You have a choice to stay present with your happiness and
the right and responsibility to enjoy it. Because it’s a gift not just
for you, but to everyone around you. Here's to a eudaimonic 2014!
Lead researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School, Nicholas Christakis, says
that “Everyday interactions we have with other people are definitely
contagious, in terms of happiness.” While that may seem obvious, he adds
that the effect goes well beyond the people with whom we have direct contact. When one person becomes happy, the effect can spread by three degrees, which includes friends of friends.
Of course, happiness may come in waves and, as a result, there are
challenges linked to studying happiness. But, when you consider the
belief that there are only 6 degrees of separation linking people, and
that we can influence 3 degrees of those people, it is quite a
remarkable notion that if we make an effort to be truly happy (no, not
the fake stuff!) then we can have a profound effect on those around us.
