Tuesday, June 05, 2007

5 Days of Happiness, Part 2

Imagine an individual that you admire, respect, and look up to. Likely, when you are faced with a decision you reference this person. Ask yourself: Are they a sociable figure? Are they someone that gets along well with other people? If you get along well with this person chances are that they get along well with other people. Generally, people who are well socially adjusted seek to be an active part of a community in some capacity. They seek to like people and to be liked by them.

After the priorities of “house and health” are met, we seek to belong to a group. Some people can make their way through a room effortlessly socializing with each and every person in the room. Some people struggle with other people. Some people choose to avoid other people for any number of reasons, cynicism among them.

Personality theorist Erik Erikson posed that people go through varying stages throughout their life. In our childhood we go through stages such as the development of trust, seeking autonomy, finding the initiative, striving for becoming industrious, and finding our identity in adolescence. As young adults we are each faced with the struggle between intimacy and isolation: After establishing a stable identity a person develops the need to seek out intimacy in their life. Sharing deeper friendships or meaningful love with others are the evolution of having found your identity—in the sense that you want to share with this with others to shared with you via shared and contrasting experiences. Researchers have found that, in fact, three out of every four college-age men and women rank a good marriage and family life as important goals to attain throughout their adulthood. This need for intimacy is often found to be at odds with isolation in that often people can fail to make meaningful and deep relationships instead forming several unfulfilling, superficial relationships leading an individual to feel alone and uncared for in life, setting the stage for later difficulties in life.

Developing social networks—regardless of their mechanics—is important to everyone and anyone’s happiness. Only through prioritizing and meeting the social need can someone seek to fulfill the need to feel respected and develop a healthy amount of esteem.

The easiest way to develop those social connections I like to compare to melting an ice cube: All other things being equal, an ice cube that is a simple block of ice will melt more slowly than one that is of the same mass but in the form factor of being a sheet; the ice that was a sheet had more surface area to increase the speed with which it melted. Just like the ice cube increasing its surface area, the more a person “increases their surface area” to the rest of the world, the more opportunity they have to make friends. Spend more time doing more things in more social situations.

However, you don’t necessarily wish to hang out in places with people who aren’t necessarily sharing the same ideals, morals, and belief structure as you. Then again, you can spend your time in social situations with people that, as a group, share the same (or similar) ideals as you...or you can spend time in social situations and groups that are things you aspire to. Realistically the best way to go would be a combination of the later two—exposing yourself to social groups that share your ideals as well as those which you aspire to.

When determining which social groups you’d like to belong to keep in mind religious, political, volunteer, humanitarian, and civic organizations. I have a good friend that has chosen to immerse herself in such organizations and, to my observations she is all that more respected and enriched because of it—and she has enriched those around her directly and indirectly.

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