Why You Should Care If The Stranger You Never Met Is Happy
Even your friend’s friend’s friend influences your wellbeing.

Interconnectedness: "The boundary between Self and Environment is a social con[struct]."

Vid Summary: This research, which was based on a 30+ year longitudinal study of more than 12,000 people who were all part of one interconnected network, found that your odds of being happy increase by 15% if a direct connection in your social network is happy. Even more critical is the degree to which indirect connections influence wellbeing.

The Harvard study found a similar effect for secondhand associations. The odds of a friend of your direct connection being happy goes up by 10% even if you don’t know or interact with this secondhand connection. Even your friend’s friend’s friend is influenced (or can influence you in return) — the odds of being happy increase by 6% when it is to the third degree.

While 15%, 10% and 6% increases in happiness may not seem significant, but it actually is when compared to the effect of having a higher income. According to this research, an increase of about $10,000 in annual income is associated with just a 2% increased likelihood of being happy.

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Source: Fowler, J.H., & Christakis, N.A. (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: Longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham heart study. BMJ, 337, a2338+.
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Additional thoughts: When remove ourselves from the equation of societal wellbeing, we are abstaining ourselves of responsibility for being part of the problem, and thus naturally, absolving us of any role in being part of the solution.

So how do we commit to playing a larger role in global wellbeing? I don’t know.

What I do know is that most changes start inside ourselves long before they manifest externally. Maybe if we start cultivating an intense love for the wellbeing of our own bodies and minds, we would, in turn, grow an intense love for the wellbeing of the earth and its children.

I believe that if we can reestablish the intra-connections within our own selves, we can reestablish the inter-connectedness we once had with the earth. When we care, we can take care.
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