True wealth can be happiness

By Tom Hintgen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published 12:00 p.m., January 12, 2009

CBS news contributor Ben Stein emphasizes that we are more than our financial investments.

“We’re more than the year-to-year or day-by-day changes in our net worth,” he said. “We are what we do for charity. We are how we treat our family and friends. We are how we treat our dogs and cats. We are what we do for our community and our nation.”

True wealth, according to Stein and others, comes from happiness.

Stein says that if you had $100 million, $100,000, $50,000 or $5,000 a year ago, and now you have a lot less, you are still the same person.

“You are not a balance sheet, at least not one denominated in money,” he said. “Losing and making money are not moral issues so long as you are being honest.”

To be sure, Stein recognizes the disappointment and hardship that comes by having a lot less money at the end of 2008, compared to last year and the year before.

“But you’re just as good as you were then,” Stein said. “It’s a myth that money determines who you are. If you’ve gotten over that myth by now, then 2009 will be a very good year.”

New research from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego, shows that happiness spreads through social networks. Your happiness can influence the happiness of others.

"We’ve known for a long time that there’s a direct relationship between one person's happiness and another's," said James H. Fowler, PhD, University of California, San Diego.

He said that the happiness of an immediate social contact increased an individual's chances of becoming happy by 15 percent. The happiness of a second-degree contact, such as the spouse of a friend, increases the likeliness of becoming happy by 10 percent.

Having more friends also increases happiness, Fowler said, but having friends who are happy is a much bigger influence on happiness. He said the findings don’t mean you should avoid unhappy people, but that you should make an effort whenever you can to spread happiness.

"We need to think of happiness as a collective phenomenon," Fowler said. "If I come home in a bad mood, I may be missing an opportunity to make not just my wife and son happy, but their friends as well."

Richard Suzman, PhD, who directs the behavioral and social research division of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study, calls the research pioneering.

"These findings are very strong," Suzman said. "From a public policy perspective, this research means we need to consider the societal impact on happiness. We’re only just beginning to understand how social networks influence these things for the overall good of society.”

CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer said he’s always been attracted to happy people.

“They put me in better humor,” Schieffer said. “Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I just don't enjoy cynics and doomsayers, so I stay clear of them.”

He’s pleased the study shows that when one person in a group is happy, it increases the possibility — sometimes by as much as 34 percent — that others in the group will also be happy.

“This includes everyone,” said Schieffer, “from a spouse to a next-door neighbor. The impact for happiness can be long-lasting.”

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Tom Hintgen is a reporter with The Daily Journal. His column runs Mondays.