Ryan Kirkendall

Happiness is a vague term. A word littered in clichés, such as, “Don’t worry, be happy,” and “Be happy, be healthy.” Many influential people have commented about happiness. Famous author Walt Whitman once wrote, “Happiness, not in another place, but this place…not for another hour, but this hour.” Our parents have echoed words, “Do what makes you happy, find out what makes you happy,” but never really have explained how to get to that point. It seems everyone in their lives is trying to reach this elusive happiness, but how can someone reach something they don’t know?

In 1938, Harvard began a study known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development. They began tracking the lives of both sophomores at the college, as well as children living in the poorest parts of Boston. The conductors of the study sent questionnaires to these men every two years, as well as supplemental interviews and such. Their goal was to find what makes adults have happier and healthier lives, and if the men’s background affected their happiness. The results were surprising.

I was inspired by this impressive study to begin sending surveys out to the school about happiness as a way to look into the lives of a student. I started by sending an initial email to the entire school. I began with simple questions, such as how happy they were, and also how they would define happiness. To pinpoint a definition of happiness would nearly be impossible, but one student said, “Happiness is a feeling of peace and absence in sadness.”

Another student replied, “Happiness is being able to be yourself around the people you love by laughing, smiling, and overall just spending quality time together.” Happiness is something everyone strives to achieve, however many students aren’t as happy as you think. On a scale from one to ten, ⅓ of students said they were normally at a five or below in terms of happiness. Of all the students who responded to the poll, 65.8 percent of students said their happiness fluctuates often. Many said this was due to stress and other people affecting their lives, and I wanted to figure out how people maintain their happiness.

Harvard’s study is still ongoing, as they are starting to include another generation of the initial participants’ families, but have still gathered intriguing results. Robert Waldinger, the head of the study, revealed in a Ted Talk, “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.” Relationships are a crucial part to our physical health, which has a direct effect on our happiness. In “Good genes are nice, but joy is better”, written by Liz Mineo on Harvard’s website, she said, “Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed. Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. That finding proved true across the board among both the Harvard men and the inner-city participants.” Maintaining our relationships can help us achieve and sustain happiness.

I wanted to learn more about relationships specific to high school, so I sent an initial follow up survey to a group of students saying they’d like to continue receiving surveys. This survey went more in depth and specifically zeroed in on close relationships. I began by asking how happy the students were at the time, and the results didn’t vary much from the original. I then asked people to define a close relationship in their own words. One student said, “Two people who want the best for each other.” Another student said, “Someone who you trust deeply.” I then asked how many close relationships each person, and the results showed that an average student has seven or eight close relationships.

Robert Dunbar was a British anthropologist and psychologist who came up with an interesting theory. Using a ratio of total brain volume to group size, he developed a series of numbers as to the limits of human relationships. The most well-known number is 150, which is the number of causal friends one can have. 50 is what you would call close friends. The next two numbers are the most applicable to this. Dunbar says you can have up to 15 people who you can sympathize with, and 5 is the number of people in your close support group, your best friends. Our number of seven or eight close relationships that students have at Badin High School falls near Dunbar’s numbers of human relationship.

In my final follow up survey, I asked the group of students here at Badin how long their friendships in high school typically last. According to our data, 58 percent of high school friendships last under two years, and 21 percent of those last under a year. Only 42 percent of high school friendships lasted throughout their entire high school career. Students cited many reasons for fading friendships, such as “growing apart” and that “things change over time”. There are also some reasons that relationships do last. One student who did feel that their friendships lasted throughout all four years said, “Once I make a connection, I never want to lose that friendship.”

Throughout the series of surveys and research, many questions are still unanswered. A true definition of happiness is vague, and the path to your personal happiness is still widely unknown. However, it is impossible to deny the fact that there is a serious correlation between personal happiness and close, healthy relationships. I believe this association explains why high school students’ happiness fluctuates so frequently, because their relationships are always changing, and people move in and out of their lives so frequently. Working to maintain our healthy, stable relationships with others will often lead to a more constant happiness. However, as one student pointed out, being happy with yourself and loving yourself is ultimately most important, “Happiness isn’t other people. Finding yourself and being content with yourself is true happiness. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.”