I’m very interested in emotional wellbeing and academic theories surrounding Happiness and living a fufilling life. I’ve even taken classes on this but I digress.

Last night, or more precisely, at 2am this morning, I stumbled on this video

After watching this talk by Robert Waldinger, as someone who prefers to spend time alone, it got thinking alot.

First off, I think the sample size for this research is too small to be global applicable. I would also like to see the correlation graphs between personal relationships and hapinness, and evaluate how individual happiness was measured. Nevertheless, this is as close as research has ever gotten to evaluating human life over such a long period of time, so I guess it will have to suffice.

Secondly, I started to worry that I might be a very unhappy person and not even know it! But, I’ve come to the conclusion that solitude and loneliness are two very different things. The major difference; one is voluntary and pleasant, the other is not.

Finally and most importantly, the conclusion that relationships are the backbone of happy living struck me. Good, healthy reliable relationships.

This reminded me of a book I read about 4 years ago on networking, asking “If you had an emergency at 2am in the morning, how many people can you call who will show up for you?”

In my humble unacademic opinion, the reason good reliable relationships are the key to a happy life is simply in knowing that there is someone there for you.

“A problem shared is one solved” and boy, is this life full of problems. Subconciously, knowing that you are not alone, and whatever crisis this life brings you, someone is there to share it with you automatically makes it easier to cope with and give one relative peace of mind.

Now, I don’t have too many good reliable relationships. In fact, after thinking long and hard, I came up with just 5 people. And then a voice whispered to me “You are forgetting one, one really big one that trumps them all”.

This researcher emphasised the value of the relationship not the physical presence of the person or people. So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that despite being unscientific, a good healthy relationship with God counts for something, and based on this research, should be key to a happy life even ifor He isn’t a person.

Agree or disagree, that’s up to you. I might have to contact Martin so see if these cases have or had an active spiritual life, and perhaps do my Phd research in this area, measuring and searching for a correlation between peace of mind and happiness.

So tell me, “If you had an emergency at 2am in the morning, how many people can you call who will show up for you?”

P:S This is another unplanned unedited post. It is very difficult to proofread and edit from my phone. I haven’t got my box back yet and my laptop charger is in it, so my laptop is dead. Hopeful it will be resolved this weekend and I can fix all the typos and grammatical errors. As always, thanks for reading