Most people are probably familiar by now the famous hypothetical question, “If you had three wishes, what would you ask for?” with the “trick answer” being, “To be happy.” Because that is what people are ultimately seeking (seek pleasure, avoid pain). John Lennon is credited with telling a story about completing a school assignment where they asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he responded, “Happy.” The idea that happiness is what people are seeking isn’t new, but the question of what makes people happy is always being asked by someone around the world since it is such a critical element that guides human behavior.
Most people respond with the fundamentals because they are core to someone’s everyday happiness: money, love, health, success, social status, friends, family, or even things like food, clothing, and shelter. Of course, as most people know from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humans must have their basic biological needs met and be safe to reach a base level of happiness. But once the obvious items that keep a person alive are taken care of, what will have the biggest impact on happiness in the long run?
Many studies have been run on this exact question, such as one from the American Psychological Association, and they often show social relationships to be the top driver. In the APA study, for example, items such as “relationships with close friends”, “satisfaction with marriage”, and “social interactions with non-family members” scored among the top items in terms of their relationship to happiness and success in life. Psychologist Arthur Aron is quoted by Tech Insider as stating, “The single biggest predictor of human happiness is the quality of [a person’s] relationships,” with regards to his research findings over the course of his career.
In another paper, Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review, researchers found that people with stronger social relationships had a 50% increased likelihood of survival compared to those with weaker social relationships. So social relationships are not only key to happiness but also prevent negative physical and mental health outcomes.
So healthy relationships are, indeed, key to both well-being and avoiding depression, illness, and even death. What you can do, therefore, is ensure that you are building and maintaining the necessary social bonds for your personal well-being. Identify and define what relationships you need: family, friends, a romantic partner, and even work or community connections. Social connections are not always about talking about your feelings; sometimes it’s just having fun and getting your mind off of any stress you are facing. Sometimes it’s helping you to solve a problem. Sometimes, it’s actually you helping them that makes you feel better—for example, men tend to like to feel useful by performing acts of service for others, while women tend to like to feel validated by having someone listen to them. This is why leaders who get people to focus on a specific task during a crisis prevents them from experiencing shock and why being reassuring—even if you don’t have a solution—can make someone feel better.
There are many ways to develop new social bonds, but you have to accept before you get started that many avenues are off limits in modern society vs. historical social norms. For example, we have social media now, but you can’t just go around adding random people to your friends list and begin chatting with them because they might think that you are a bot or scammer and, therefore, will block or ignore you. Similarly, it is difficult to simply go to a restaurant or store and chat with someone because they might be in the middle of an important conversation or errand. You also don’t know what you might have in common (other than being in the same place at the same time), so it’s difficult to keep the conversation going. Many people trying to develop social bonds will make this mistake and feel rejected or stupid when it’s just a suboptimal way to form new relationships.
Instead, there are environments where people expect to socialize with others and meet new people: clubs (meaning social groups, not dance clubs—both can work, but the former is much easier than the latter), dating events, parties, churches, support groups, bars, picnics, and other areas where people are away from home with the primary purpose to socialize will make striking up a conversation with someone much, much easier and often will even require conversation with new people as part of the activity.
In addition to building new relationships, you need to maintain existing ones. Call family members, make dates with friends, spend time with your spouse or significant other, and schedule periodic one-on-one meetings with colleagues at work to keep in touch and sustain those relationships. A plant that is not properly watered or does not have the right nutrients will wither, and so will your bonds with others if you do not maintain those connections.
So if you have to pick between work and money or social bonds, try not to sacrifice the latter for the former because it might counterintuitively hurt your overall well-being. Once you have enough to live comfortably, money cannot “buy happiness” after that (i.e., studies show that the happiness increase from money flattens as someone makes over roughly six figures). The relationships you have will matter more to your happiness than just about anything else, so make sure to build and maintain them as you need them. Yes, you might only need one friend if you’re an introvert and many if you’re an extrovert, but you will still need them. Come up with a plan to sustain your relationships, and you will be able to sustain your wellbeing even through the tough times in life.