When you are a Happiness Advocate, the Society of Happy People founder, and author of Practical Happiness: Four Principles to Improve Your Life, one thing you learn is that satisfying relationships are the one thing that increase your happiness, wellbeing, and health. And a Harvard study that’s spanned more than 80 years confirms it.
“When we gathered together everything we knew about them about at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,” said Robert Waldinger in a popular TED Talk. “It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.”
So, good relationships are a significant factor in our long-term happiness and even good health. Before you get too idealistic, a good relationship isn’t the absence of disagreements. It’s feeling like someone—a friend, family member, co-worker, or lover—has your back. You may disagree with each other, and give each other tough feedback. However, you know that other person has your best interest at heart and you can be honest with them. Good relationships are about trust.
While the relationships that contribute to our happiness are bigger than our romantic ones, these connections we have with people who we feel anything from lust to love, always leave a footprint on our hearts and souls in a different way than say our best friend does.
Our relationships are the catalysts for many experiences that contribute to the many different types of happiness that we experience. The Society of Happy People identified Thirty-One Types of Happiness to help people recognize more of the happy moments that were already part of our lives. If you want to learn about all of them you can get the Happiness Counter at sohp.com/gift.
Practical Happiness Principle Four is Happiness Is Bigger Than You Think. In Practical Happiness, I share stories from contributors that show the Thirty-One Types of Happiness in action.
Sharon and Robert graciously shared their stories about love and nostalgic happiness.
Love
“My husband and I have been married for over thirty years,” Sharon reported. “Early on, we started making a point to do something deliberate to make each other happy each day. It’s a little daily gift to each other. Every day, I try to leave him something that will make him happy.
“It’s little things,” she continued. “He’s very involved in voluntary search and rescue. I found a heated necklace that I thought would be good for him when he’s out in the mountains on a freezing night. I left it for him on the kitchen table with a little note. Also, it’s not always about spending money. I leave notes in his lunchbox or create love coupons. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a fast-food gift card or a piece of chocolate. It’s just something that’s a little bit unexpected. I suppose after thirty years, it’s a little more expected, but I try to add the element of surprise.
“For me, it may be a back rub, a massage, or filling my tank up with gas,” Sharon said. “He does things that make me laugh. Once he came home with coupons for free food he’d won at the voluntary search and rescue. He said, ‘Well, we can go out, and we’ll go from one fast-food place to the other to pick up our free food, then we’ll have a meal.’ And it sounds crazy, but I was rolling over laughing because it was the thoughtfulness and the playfulness. The way he presented that to me just made the difference.”
Nostalgic
Seventy-seven-year-old Robert shared, “My wife, Lieu, and I had been married twenty-three years in December. I loved every minute of being married to her. She passed away three days after getting COVID. When I think back on it, how we met always makes me smile.
“Her husband and I were friends from work. He had diabetes that started attacking all his organs. Before he died, he spoke with me privately and asked, ‘Could you look after Lieu? Just stop in and make sure she’s doing okay. There are lots of things that will be new for her, and she won’t know what to do. Just keep an eye on her. She’ll be depressed. She’ll need your happiness.’
“I’ve always believed that happiness was something each of us has control over to varying degrees,” Robert explained. “There are lots of ways you can lose it. Take me, for example. My first wife and I divorced after a thirty-year marriage and two kids, but we’ve remained friends. I was always the one who had control over being happy or not. I found that making other people happy really made me happier, too.
“Initially, I helped Lieu move to a smaller place,” he said. “I kept checking in on her. About a year later, I was liking her—a lot. So I asked her, ‘Would you date me?’
“‘No, you’re my friend,’ she said. ‘That’s all it’s gonna be. I had a great husband and marriage.’
“I asked her another time or two, and she still said no,” Robert continued.
One Sunday, Robert decided to show up at her house, in a suit and with a single red rose, at the exact time she went to church. He asked if he could accompany her and made sure to let her know it wasn’t a date. To his delight she agreed for him to take her to church. After the service he also took her to lunch.
“Well, when the meal was over, I remember smiling big and saying to her, ‘Now that was a date,’” he continued. “So now that you’ve had a date with me, you really shouldn’t say no anymore. She said all right but that we were still just friends and that was all. Well, the next thing you know, I’m in love with her and about six months later I’m asking her to marry me. And, can you believe it? She said no.
“My company sent me to Washington, DC, on business,” Robert said. “I asked Lieu to join me, and she did. Unfortunately, she got one of those yucky canned-air colds from flying, so I took care of her for a couple of days while she recuperated. Once she was feeling better, we got to go out and do a bunch of tourist stuff. At one of the tourist shops, she bought me a happy-face button with heart eyes. And under the smile, it said, ‘I love you.’ I took one look at it and said, ‘This is the first thing you’ve ever given me like this. Does this mean you’ll marry me?’
“‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I really discovered on this trip that I do love you,’ she said to me. ‘And, I want to marry you, too.’
“When we got married I proudly wore that pin on my suit,” he continued. “I’m still trying to be that happy guy she married and carry on what she left me. I’m finding that even though she’s gone, she’s still here, in my heart. Making other people happy and doing happy things for them: That is what keeps me happy. It ties us together even though she’s someplace else.”
This excerpt is adapted from Pamela Gail Johnson’s new book, Practical Happiness: Four Principles to Improve Your Life. Reprinted with permission from Health Communications, Inc.
Practical Happiness is available from Amazon and Bookshop.