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“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” It turns out that Michael Caine was right all along. Playing Scrooge in the Muppet’s Christmas Carol, he sang: “If you want to know the measure of a man, you simply count his friends!” Countless studies on the science of happiness have turned up one single characteristic of the happiest and most successful people in society. They have a large social network! Lots of friends. Lots of colleagues. Lots of people they call just to banter with for 10 minutes. How many friends are stored in your cell phone? One shortcut to becoming happier – quickly – is to simply make more friends. Be proactive about it. Don’t just wait for interesting people to stumble into your life. Join a local dance group. Discover a book club. Try randomly chatting with strangers in your nearest cafe. Get yourself listed on social networking sites and join the online groups that share your interests. Subscribe to the many friendship-only sites springing up in big cities. Get out there! Making friends isn’t that difficult. You just need to make the effort. Here are some tips. Firstly, make yourself an attractive friend. Don’t begrudge buying a coffee occasionally. Don’t have “attitude.” Don’t spend your time moaning. Nobody likes negativity. Keep a smile on your face – while being yourself. Secondly, make an effort, even when they don’t. Sometimes people are reserved in the early stages of friendship, and need that extra push before a real connection can be established. Be the one to make that move. If it doesn’t work out, it’s their loss. Move on. Throughout it all, however, make sure you play the numbers game. Don’t stop when you have one or two extra friends. Keep going and going. Expand your social circle as far as you can. Be the person that walks through town and bumps into a dozen friends. Remember, the happiest people are those that have the largest social circles. So, be more social – and you will be happy. Despite abundant evidence arguing for building success on one’s personal strengths, about 75 percent of respondents in surveys say that working on one’s weaknesses is more important than fostering strengths. This may be because human beings are “very sensitive to danger or pain,” says Nancy Etcoff. “ Our taste buds respond more strongly to bitter tastes than to sweet ones. That might help us to avoid poison.” Etcoff, an evolutionary psychologist, studies how natural selection may have shaped not only our bodies, but our psychological dispositions. Extending the sweet/bitter argument to relationships, she mentions research showing that, unlike couples destined for divorce, spouses in successful marriages have a five-to-one ratio of positive-to-negative gestures when they argue. “We start with a mild tendency to approach [others],” Etcoff continues. “But when we encounter something negative, we pay extraordinary attention to it. Think about hearing a description of a stranger: ‘Joe is happy, confident, and funny. But he’s cheap.’” Negative information like this can forecast a problem: if Joe is cheap he may hoard, rather than share his resources with us. “Our emotions are like a smoke detector: it’s OK if they sometimes give a false signal,” Etcoff says. “You don’t die from a false positive. It’s better to be too sensitive. We evolved in a world of much more immediate danger—germs, predators, crevasses.” Dr. Robert Puff, Ph.D. is a meditation expert, international speaker, and avid blogger who’s wisdom can be found on http://www.Meditation-Enlightenment.com. Dr. Puff is the creator of the weekly Meditation for Health Podcast, available at http://www.MeditationForHealthPodcast.com. Additionally, he has a weekly podcast that explores the world of Happiness, available at http://www.happinesspodcast.org
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Happiness, what is happiness, how to be happy, ways to be happy, how to be happy in life, how to live a happy life,
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