Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. — Jane Howard

Close family and friends give us many gifts. They appreciate us, they celebrate with us, they laugh with us, they cry with us. They share their knowledge and talent and resources. And we give them those gifts in return. Sharing our lives is a foundation for happiness; we all need family and friends and community.

A recent study reported in CNN magazine points out that people’s happiness quotient goes up significantly (up to 25%!) if they have a close friend that lives nearby, a close sibling that lives nearby, a neighbor that they are friends with, and even if a friend of a friend lives nearby. What’s more, happiness ripples through social networks. If we have friends who are happy people, it boosts our own feelings of happiness and contentment.

For each of us, family, friends and community may be different. Some of us may have a large, extended family, or one close sibling, or a favorite aunt, or a family that we’ve adopted. Some of us may have a few close friends, or we may be social butterflies. Some of us find community in the church we go to, or we are friends with some of the parents at our child’s school, or we belong to a jogging group or a book club.

George Burns, the American actor and comedian, famously said “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” Well, no one said families are perfect, (or for that matter, roommates, or friends) but we’re social creatures and we strive to have good relationships. And when we do? Our happiness quotient goes up!

Then there’s the concept of community at work. Workplace studies that focus on employee engagement and retention say that people want to have “a community at work”. If you spend seven or eight hours of every day at your workplace, you want to feel a sense of belonging and connection.

I once worked in a workplace where the secretary was the ultimate social convener. She organized Halloween parties, Valentine’s parties, birthday parties, picnic parties. We were a happy department and the other departments gravitated toward our end of the office.

Friends and family and community are there for us in bad times as well as good times, the times when we’re sad or disappointed or grieving. We share out emotions and it helps us to recover sooner, to not get stuck, to make our way back to happiness.

Friends and family and community are also there for us when we celebrate, whether it’s a graduation or a wedding or a birth or a raise or a retirement or some small personal victory. Celebrations bring people closer together and spread happiness.

If this is an area lacking in your life, there are some easy concrete steps you can take to add community to your life:

• Go to church. This is one of the best places to find community.
• Join a club (book club, knitting club, spelunking club)
• Go to the group classes at the gym.
• Reconnect with old friends by making 1 hour per week a “phone call” hour where you just talk to friends on the phone.

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“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best,” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called. — A.A. Milne

We all know about that kind of anticipation – when we’re about to indulge ourselves in one of our favorite treats – dark chocolate with macadamia nuts, our favorite sauvignon blanc, a great novel, a shopping spree, a ylang ylang bubble bath, a romantic dinner with our sweetie, a walk by the ocean, a two-week vacation to the Caribbean – whatever makes you happy and excited. We all have our special treats and extravagances that bring happiness and excitement.

But it seems there are different definitions of happiness. Life-enhancing pleasures, like Pooh diving into the honey pot, are often referred to as “momentary happiness” or “transitory happiness” or “pleasure” – wonderful but fleeting. Then there’s what, in many studies, is referred to as “enduring happiness” or “contentment”, where an individual maintains an enduring level of happiness through the normal ups and downs of life. We say someone is “a happy person” or that someone “always has a positive attitude”, and it isn’t because their life is better or easier than anyone else’s. Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, says: “Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.”

Many studies have shown that wealth, income, job status, etc. do not make people happy and we’ve all seen examples of that. Studies of people winning the big lotteries show that five years later their happiness level is the same as it was before they won. If they weren’t happy people before they had their big win, they aren’t any happier five years after. What seems to distinguish happy people is that they have a unique attitude – a different way of thinking about things and doing things. They interpret the world and go about their lives in a different way.

It seems to be generally agreed that individuals start out with a set range of happiness, possibly genetic, that counts for about40 to 50% of our tendency towards happiness, whereas our circumstances count for about 10%. That leaves 40 to 50% of our happiness that is voluntary. This includes all aspects of our life over which we have a relatively high degree of control, including our thoughts and actions and attitude. How we choose to think and act has a significant impact on how happy we are, which means we can take steps to being a happier person – a choice that stands to make a big difference in our life and the lives of those around us. Happiness is a choice. Make the choice to be happy and reaffirm that choice daily.

“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily. “So it is.” “And freezing.” “Is it?” “Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.” — A.A. Milne

Have a question about this blog post? Come join us at Bramble Berry’s Facebook page and we can help you out with any of your soapy questions!