Happiness and Good Relationships: A 75 Year Old Experiment
A Harvard Study of Adult Development followed and documented a large number of people over their entire lifetimes, and after 75 years, the researchers came to a conclusion that good relationships are a primary cause of health and happiness, significantly more than wealth, fame or working hard.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
- We all have a biological need to connect, an ability and desire to share our emotions with those around us. This is known as Limbic Resonance.
- Our connection with the other deeply impacts our emotional and physical health, as we synchronize with the other.
- Experiments done on babies in the 13th century illustrated that they would die if deprived of the human connection.
- Divorce rates are higher among couples not able to engage, resonate or respond to the others' need to connect.
People who are socially connected to their loved ones, friends and society are healthier, happier and live longer than the people who are lonely. The isolated people turn toxic, with their health and brain functions declining at an earlier stage of life.
People feel better if they are understood, heard, and appreciated. Even talking to a homeless man for a few seconds will light up his eyes and make him feel recognized. Being lonely for so long, he might have forgotten that he even exists.
- Listening is one of the most important but hardest skills to achieve. The stuff we want to say, our ego, and impatience get in the way of being a good listener.
- A simple trick to be an effective listener is to focus on listening actively with the intention to summarize what the other person is saying, instead of focusing on your upcoming reply.
If you summarize to the speaker what you have listened to, asking intelligent questions, it will create an extraordinary effect, as the other person will realize that you were genuinely listening.
To show that you resonate with the other person, you have to be genuinely empathetic and able to ask worthy questions.
If you are cutting short the conversation, stating your opinions, or saying ‘I understand’, ‘I see’ or ‘interesting’ a lot, it signals to the speaker that you are not really listening.
When opening the door for someone, we have to understand the need and the timing of the activity.
We have to build trust by being attentive to their needs and interests, opening the door at just the right moment. This is crucial for the power of resonance to work.
RELATED IDEAS
We can only earn wisdom. It cannot be given to us. When we receive answers from someone else, we might achieve the desired outcome, but the solution comes from dependence, not insight.
There is nothing wrong with buying insight. The problem is when we think the insight of others is our own.
After a particularly stressful event, most people prepare for a repeat of the same challenge they just faced. From the micro level to the macro level, we succumb to the availability bias and get ready to fight a war we’ve already fought.
We learn that one lesson, but we don’t expand that knowledge to other areas. Because we focus on the specific details, we don’t extrapolate what we learn to identifying what we can better do to prepare for adversity in general.