More Contentment

At the end of last week's blog I said: "In reality, all of us could be without a home or a vehicle or...insert words here...in an instant. There are no guarantees."


I used to work at a church and one of the parts of the job I really enjoyed was answering the door when people came looking for help. In the course of trying to find how best the church could help them, I had many conversations with the seekers. One thing that made an impression on me year after year was that most of the people at the door did not have relationships with friends or family that could sustain them in their time of need. I came to see that homelessness, especially in the case of single individuals, said something not only about the person's ability to find and hold down a paying job but also about the state of their relationships with others.


That brings me to happiness and the second quality of people who are happy.
The happiest people are those who invest in relationships with others.

One must be careful when reading the above statement. Even though happy people generally invest themselves in relationships, we are each responsible for our own happiness. Looking to other people to make us happy does not work. Saying that I must be in a relationship with so-and-so in order to be happy is a slippery slope.


True happiness comes from within and not from others.



Yale University Psychologist June Gruber: “The strongest predictor of happiness is not money, or external recognition through success or fame, it’s having meaningful social relationships. That means the best way to increase your happiness is to stop worrying about being happy and instead divert your energy to nurturing the social bonds you have with other people."



Investing in relationships means spending time with others, giving of yourself to others and allowing them to give back to you. At the heart of investing in relationships is the ability to be open and vulnerable and allow yourself to receive comfort from others.



So find occasions to enjoy and nurture the relationships you already have and also to encourage new friendships. One of the ways you can strengthen your relationships is to do a certain thing together....no....I'm not talking about anything sexual....more about that next time.




In the meantime, here's something else for you to do:

The Oxford Happiness Inventory, developed by psychologists Michael Argyle and Peter Hills at Oxford University in 2001, shows positive correlations for happiness with satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and sociability.

Take the Happiness Inventory for yourself at
http://www.meaningandhappiness.com/oxford-happiness-questionnaire/214/