The Value of Friends

Read about it here.

A few quotes from the article:

"If you want to be happy, what’s most important is to have lots of friends. Historically, we have often thought that having a small cluster of tight, long-term friends is crucial to being happy. But Christakis and Fowler found that the happiest people in Framingham were those who had the most connections, even if the relationships weren’t necessarily deep ones."

"The reason these people were the happiest, the duo theorize, is that happiness doesn’t come only from having deep, heart-to-heart talks. It also comes from having daily exposure to many small moments of contagious happiness. When you frequently see other people smile — at home, in the street, at your local bar — your spirits are repeatedly affected by your mirroring of their emotional state. Of course, the danger of being highly connected to lots of people is that you’re at risk of encountering many people when they are in bad moods. But Christakis and Fowler say their findings show that the gamble of increased sociability pays off, for a surprising reason: Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness. According to their statistical analysis, each additional happy friend boosts your good cheer by 9 percent, while each additional unhappy friend drags you down by only 7 percent. So by this logic, adding more links to your network should — mathematically — add to your store of happiness. “If you’re at the center of a network, you are going to be more susceptible to anything that spreads through it,” Fowler said. “And if happiness is spreading more reliably, then on average you’re going to be catching happy waves more often than you catch sad waves.”

"behaviors appear to spread differently depending on the type of friendship that exists between two people. In the Framingham study, people were asked to name a close friend. But the friendships weren’t always symmetrical. Though Steven might designate Peter as his friend, Peter might not think of Steven the same way; he might never designate Steven as a friend. Christakis and Fowler found that this “directionality” mattered greatly. According to their data, if Steven becomes obese, it has no effect on Peter at all, because he doesn’t think of Steven as a close friend. In contrast, if Peter gains weight, then Steven’s risk of obesity rises by almost 100 percent. And if the two men regard each other as mutual friends, the effect is huge — either one gaining weight almost triples the other’s risk. In Framingham, Christakis and Fowler found this directionality effect even among people who lived and worked very close to each other. And that, they argue, means it can’t be the environment that is making people in Framingham fatter, since the environment ought to affect each of these friends equally."

"They discovered that people who were deeply enmeshed in friendship circles were usually much happier than “isolates,” those with few ties. But if an isolate did manage to find happiness, she did not suddenly develop more ties and migrate to a position where she was more tightly connected to others. The reverse was also true: if a well-connected person became unhappy, he didn’t lose his ties and become an isolate. Your level of connectedness appears to be more persistent than even your overall temperament. “If you picked up someone who’s well connected and dropped them into another network, they’d migrate toward the center,” Christakis said. Your place in the network affects your happiness, in other words, but your happiness doesn’t affect your place in the network."

"Christakis and Fowler say social contagion could even help explain the existence of altruism: if we can pass on altruism to distant points in a network, it would help explain why altruistic people aren’t simply constantly taken advantage of by other members of their community. Last year, to test this theory, they conducted a laboratory experiment in which participants played a “cooperation game.” Each participant was asked to share a sum of money with a small group and could choose to be either generous or selfish. Christakis and Fowler found that if someone was on the receiving end of a generous exchange, that person would become more generous to the next set of partners — until the entire larger group was infected, as it were, with altruistic behavior, which meant the altruist would benefit indirectly."

“Even as we are being influenced by others, we can influence others,” Christakis told me when we first met. “And therefore the importance of taking actions that are beneficial to others is heightened. So this network thing can cut both ways, subverting our ability to have free will, but increasing, if you will, the importance of us having free will.”

"As Fowler pointed out, if you want to improve the world with your good behavior, math is on your side. For most of us, within three degrees we are connected to more than 1,000 people — all of whom we can theoretically help make healthier, fitter and happier just by our contagious example. “If someone tells you that you can influence 1,000 people,” Fowler said, “it changes your way of seeing the world.”

Your thoughts?

My sister Colette sent this to me. The woman's sentiments about how her mission made her wish that she had spent her life being less selfish really resonated with me. When I talk of my mission, I try to be honest about the fact that it was really, really hard. The world is harsh, but the exposure really softened me and made me wish that my life prior to that time had been less me-focused. It is a sentiment that I still carry strongly with me. I set all sorts of goals for doing loads of community service when I got back. This reminded me of the person the mission made me realize I wanted to be.

Why I Love Her....

Because she makes me feel great!!

Thanks Julianne.

31 Life Lessons

Well, today is 09/09/09, and you know what that means, tomorrow is my birthday, of course. Last year I considered writing 30 pieces of advice, but I thought that seemed patronizing, like I somehow knew all of the answers to life, but I don't, I assure you, but these are a few things that life has taught me.

(1) Most of the time, there are no substitutes for life experiences. You just have to go through it to understand. Life is not a spectator sport. Empathy and genuine compassion are bred by experience.

(2) Pushing through the hard times is critical for progression. Your life experiences will not change you if you do not persist through them. It is always tempting to quit, but don't.

(3) Know that in life, you will experience pleasure and pain, sickness and health, love and loneliness. Embrace all of them, because there is a purpose to all of it. Life will not always be full of pleasure, and life will not always be pain.

(4) Heavenly Father really does get it, he really does. There is a plan, and all the pieces fit far more perfectly than we can comprehend right now. Faith, faith, faith. It is a powerful thing. Choose to hang on, you won't regret it, at least, I haven't.

(5) Specific prayer is amazing. I think all people who know that God exists start here. But the trick is not to pray for what you want, but to ask him what He wants, and keep at it for a few weeks and follow the answers you get. This is faith, not a magic 8 ball or a genie, but spiritual work for which there is no substitute. The answers do come, even if you think you are too scientific to ever believe in such things. If He is, the truth will be discoverable.

(6) 'If you will, it is no fairly tale.' Theordore Herzl. I couldn't agree more. He was talking about the gathering of the Jews, but Heavenly Father, angels, spiritual promptings, answers to prayers, miracles, they are real, so very, very real. But if you don't have faith, it seems like a fairy tale, but it isn't.

(7) Effective communication is critical for fulfilling human relationships. It is a life skill well worth practicing.

(8) Do hard things, it is important to know that you can do it.

(9) The more you exercise self-control, the better you get at it.

(10) Education is more important than money. You can take it with you anywhere and its effects last longer. Developing critical thinking skills are well worth the investment.

(11) There is nothing romantic about being poor. I don't care what people say. Financial security is worth every ounce of self-control. It brings peace, harmony, freedom, and the power to dream and fulfill those dreams.

(12) With that said, there is something powerful and healthy for humans to work and honestly gain their income...and even if it wasn't about income, there is intrinsic value in work.

(13) The truth matters. Appearance is not reality.

(14) Living your values is about a kabillion times harder than talking about your values.

(15) Sleep is very, very important.

(16) In the end, balance is the key to happiness and it shifts depending on your life situation. Learning what the new balance when life changes is key.

(17) Take time to unwind after doing major things. Maybe this doesn't apply to anyone else, but it has really hit home for me this week. My past: I flew in from Thailand and New Zealand and in both instances went to work the next day. I used to take night trains from different parts of Europe and walk into class the next morning with my travel back pack on, unload and start taking notes. I flew home from Nantucket last month, dropped my bags off and went straight to work. I drove all night last week and went to work the next morning. Now I am drained, drained, drained. Take home lesson - take the time to unwind. Otherwise, you lose the balance, and it is not a good thing.

(18) Take time to smell the roses. This was my take home lesson from Paris that I struggle on a daily basis to apply. It was the happiest time of my life. I took 13 credits, normally I took 18 or more. My goal was to smell the roses everyday. It was AMAZING.

(19) Life is not black and white. There are a million shades of gray. To simplify it to black and white is to miss the nuances.

(20) Being able to effectively prioritize is critical to success.

(21) Reading scriptures daily is the best habit I ever set. I feel very strongly that everyone would benefit from making it a habit.

(22) Purity does matter. There is an integrity to it that is powerful.

(23) You have to have to give. This was one of my many take home lessons from law school. You have to have to give.

(24) I used to believe that we should always believe in the best in people...and most of the time that is true. But hey, everybody is different. Know that there will be exceptions here and there, but people are good.

(25) Everybody thinks they are good at heart. I have yet to find an exception, and I often work with prisoners.

(25) It is easy to be "mature" when you are not emotionally invested.

(26) Meet vulnerability with vulnerability.

(27) Good people are often not very charming at first, because they are sincere. They don't put on appearances so they can selfishly gain affection. But at the end of the day, they are worth their salt. When second guessed, they prove out.

(28) Have dreams.

(29) True love does what is really best for people. This is my mantra.

(30) In moments when you feel like maybe you are crazy or the only sane one on the planet, go with your gut. You are probably right.

(31) People have as much variety in their emotional build as they do in skin color. The sun might burn one person and tan another. Things might roll off one person's back that may devastate another. To expect everyone to be build the same, is simply not recognizing reality for what it is.

Well, there you have it. The accumulation of 31 years of life experience. And going back to number 1, all of these lessons of mine are pointlessly written, because experience is a much better teacher than a blog.