Everybody wants to be happy, right? Me, you, that barista who served you coffee this morning and the homeless guy who looked so sad and lost on your way to work. It’s hard-wired into every human to avoid pain and seek pleasure – especially a consistent, lifelong feeling of happiness.

But the tricky thing is how? How do we learn to be, if not happy, then happier than we are right now? What if we struggle with mental-health problems and happiness seems like a distant mirage that fades every time we think it’s close? And what if we experienced significant trauma in our childhoods and so just leading a ‘normal’, functional life is a day-to-day struggle, let alone some fanciful notion of actually being happy?

I spend virtually every waking moment of my life pondering these questions. All I do is think, read, research, learn and practice with my clients (and myself, my friends and family) how to be happier. How to heal and recover from past traumas and childhood hurts. How to lift the mood of depression or calm the agitation of anxiety.

the search for happiness

One book, in particular, has stood out to me recently as I conduct this search. It’s The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schultz. Unlike many psychology books I read, it’s extremely well-written and highly readable. And it contains some genuinely transformative pearls of wisdom on what it takes to live a rich, meaningful and happy life.

The authors are the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development – a truly remarkable piece of research that has followed 724 men since they were teenagers in 1938. Approximately 60 of these men, now in their 90s, are still left. The Study chose two groups of men, one comprising Harvard students and the other from Boston’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

What’s so remarkable about this study is that it follows these men through their entire lives – from teenage years until, for many of them, those lives come to an end. And the researchers are able to glean a vast treasure trove of information about them, asking at regular intervals about every aspect of their health, day-to-day lives, their marriages, work, kids, views on life, coping strategies when times are hard…

This book is profoundly moving, because we hear the stories of these men, their triumphs and failures, greatest joys and toughest moments in their lives. We also hear from some of the 1,300 children of the original participants, who were later added to the project. It’s a brilliant book – I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And remember this is a study on what makes us happy. What constitutes a good life. Not just the things that make us sad, stressed or afraid.

So what does make us happy?

Having tracked all of these people, for so many years, the researchers found a few key ingredients that seemed to add up to a well-lived life, whatever their class, income level or occupation. Trying not to have any regrets was one ingredient, as was developing successful coping skills for the bumpy bits of life.

But the most important ingredient seems to be about other people – developing and maintaining warm relationships was the most important factor determining which of these Bostonians were happy and which less so. In some ways, this is common sense. We know that, for example, being in a warm, loving, mutually supportive romantic relationship makes us happy. And we know that having close friends makes us feel good in all sorts of ways.

But studies like these, as well as decades of research into attachment, give us cast-iron, empirical proof that loneliness is a real problem for our mental and physical health; that the kind of relationship we have with our parents hugely influences the relationships we forge as an adult; and that having close, positive relationships with friends, family, colleagues and others is the key to a happy life.

What if your relationships are not good?

We have to be careful with studies like these, because it’s easy to think, ‘Well, my relationships are awful. I maintain distance with my family, am single and struggle to make friendships, so am I doomed to unhappiness?’ And my answer would be no, not at all.

Many of us – myself included – have difficult relationships with family members. You may also find friendships difficult, perhaps only having one or two good friends, or finding social situations hard to navigate. You may not have a partner, which is a source of ongoing sadness for you.

If so, please don’t despair. We live in the 21st century and there are many ways of living a good life that don’t involve marriage or children, let alone a wide network of friends.

But it’s helpful to remember that humans are social, tribal animals. Our brains are wired (indeed, primarily developed) for attachment, connection, relationship.

So if your relationships currently make you unhappy, please do get some good-quality therapy to help you cut loose those people who make you feel bad and find new people who light you up, or make you feel safe, or who just get you and accept you for who you are.

We can all do that, at any age and life stage. As I’m always saying in these posts, It’s never too much and never too late to heal. That applies to relationships too.

So please read the book, I’m confident you will enjoy it. And I wish you strength, courage and determination on your road to happiness, however long it may be.

Sending love and warm thoughts,

Dan