Surround Yourself with Positive People

"Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another."

- Eustace Budgell (1711)

The law of attraction suggests that happiness will attract happiness, but could it be the other way around happiness will create happiness? A joint research study by Harvard Medical professor, Nicholas A. Christakis and University of California Political Science associate professor, James H Fowler, discovered: "People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future." The conclusions indicate that the happiness resulted from the spread of happiness in the network not as a result of similar people associating. The spread of happiness was traceable to three degrees of separation - a friend of a friend or a friend of a neighbor. The likelihood of happiness spreading was higher between people who were the same gender. As well the happiness spread is more likely when the friends live in close geographic proximity, within a mile of each other.

A friend of mine had a vision of the ideal community where the neighborhood was made up of all his close friends and family. When he explained it I thought it sounded a bit too 60's commune like, but now I see there is merit in this type neighborhood. This study also explains why urban sprawl is not only environmentally unsound, but is also emotionally detrimental to the community.

Many of my friends live on the opposite side of town from me. We tend to get together for lunch because we all work in downtown. They keep suggesting that I need to move closer. I love where I live and have no desire to move, but maybe it would help me be happy if we were to move. Any suggestions on how I can convince Homer?

If you want to read more about the study and its findings here is the link:
http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/dynamic_spread_of_happiness.pdf

Surround yourself with happy people, to move closer to your

Bright Star Dreams