Why Relationships Trump Your Career In Terms of Happiness

By | July 29, 2011

Many of us assume that money does indeed buy happiness. After all, we like things. We like better technology for our living room. We like a smoother ride to work in a fancier car. We like bigger, better, faster, stronger. So if we’re going to be happy, we’re going to have to have the money required to buy all of these great happiness-generating items, right?

No! Of course not. But too many of us are still caught up in the materialistic mindset that “once I have this income, I’ll be free to be as happy as I please.” Baloney. You can be as happy as you want to be any day of the week.

And you’d be surprised that happiness doesn’t come from money as much as you think. In fact, relationships have a greater impact on our overall happiness than any job ever could – even the best of jobs. Being in love and having a great relationship is just part of the journey. Having a supportive family, an active social circle of friends, and solid relationships with co-workers generally means we’ll have a happy life. And you’d be surprise at just how you reap what you sew: the more you put into relationships, the more happiness you can extract from them.

Is this true? The Beatles, after all, said “in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” But does this really stand up as a personal philosophy in the 21st century, when so many people are too out of work to be happy?

Sure it does. It’s entirely possible to be poor and happy – but much more difficult to be lonely and happy. Once you understand this, the world can open up to you: investing in relationships can directly increase your happiness, almost as sure as if you’re applying a mathematical formula.

But what does “investing in relationships” mean? Well, here at Kupple.com, you have a lot of opportunities to invest in relationships: you can invest your time and look for other couple friends that can add a lot of fun to your life. You can do more favors for friends. You can reach out to friends and acquaintances more often, looking to go out, socialize, and have fun. And when you do hang out with friends, you can work to be happy and relaxed. That’s all people really ask out of their friendship with you. You’d be amazed at how well many people respond to simple happiness when it’s shared with others.

Of course, if you focus on your career, you won’t have as much of this happiness to go around. Whatever we do often is what gets exercised: if we go to the gym, our muscles get bigger. Would you rather develop social muscles or career muscles?

Naturally, it’s not an either/or proposition, but when you look back on your life, there’s a good chance you won’t wish you’d spent more time at work.

By Staff

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