Happiness Lessons from Harvard’s Research

Harvard scientists have tracked 724 men throughout their adulthood for a study on happiness¹

The participants were teenagers with varied backgrounds, from the rich Harvard sophomores to the poorest Boston boys who didn’t have proper running water at home.

Just like many people around you today, most of them believe that to have a good life, they should go after money, fame, or high career achievements.

Researchers then observed their lives unfolding for 75 years.

It was quite comprehensive. They did personal interviews at home, talked to the men’s children and wives, analysed the blood profiles, brain scans and more.

The participants went on to become diverse members of the community, such as factory workers, lawyers, and even a US president.

Predictors of happiness and health

Dr Robert Waldinger is the director of the study². Out of the thousands of data sets and decades of study, he describes the main lesson:

From this study, one important lesson about what makes for the good life emerges time and time again. Simply put, good relationships keep us happy and healthy.

He elaborates:

1. Loneliness kills.

People who are more connected to family, friends and community are physically healthier, happier and live longer.

People who are isolated have less life satisfaction, regardless of outward achievements.

They also suffer diseases at younger ages and have shorter lifespans.

2. The quality of relationships matters more than the quantity.

Loneliness can occur even when people are well-known in the community, have lots of friends, and are married.

The number of relationships matters less than the quality of close relationships.

A high-conflict marriage can damage health more than a divorce. Living in deep, close relationships is protective to well-being.

3. Good relationships protect the mind.

Deep relationships in your 80s delay the deterioration of brain functions.

Satisfying relationships in the 50s are better predictors than cholesterol levels for overall health in the 80s.

Inability to emotionally rely on spouses predicts earlier memory decline. Even if you bicker a lot, if you can rely on your loved one when things get tough, the arguments do not cause memory decline.

Is your happiness a priority at your workplace?

The lesson of this research is simple; yet applying it is challenging in our work culture.

For example, your lifelong fulfillment and happiness is rarely the main objective of your work organisation.

This is true not because others are selfish.

Your colleagues or your bosses do care about you to a certain degree. That is why you are part of the faculty, agency or company.

But many work cultures demand hard numbers, such as the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). So the company’s top priority is you hitting those numbers.

Things that matter to you, including your lifelong health and happiness, are not in those indicators³.

For example, you work to chase after a promotion and fulfil your sales KPI. You barely exercise or are regularly sleep-deprived.

And then you become obese with type 2 diabetes in your late 30s, or develop atherosclerosis in your 40s, or cancer the year after you retire.

Or, you don’t give enough attention to your family connection.

Your wife or husband feels more like a housemate than a lifelong, intimate partner. Your children are more of strangers to you than your postgrad students or younger colleagues at work.

If you suffer those health and relationship issues, your boss or work friends may genuinely sympathise.

But, as a company, those won’t be on the PowerPoint slides in the next quarterly meeting. The system is designed to track your productivity, not to care about you or your family.

If you die tomorrow, your boss and colleagues will feel sorry.

But your company will just replace you and move on.

Don’t blame others

The pragmatic response is not to blame others. Not your bosses. Not your company.

Instead, accept that you can’t depend on them for the quality of your health and relationships.

You must make the hard decisions and say ‘no’ more times than you would like.

It is not easy. In fact, the better you are at your job, the harder it becomes, because more people will rely on you.

At times, you must prepare to endure the emotional pain, especially when others look down on your performance numbers, implying that you don’t work as hard as others.

Don’t overlook those criticisms. They may expose the areas where you can and need to improve.

But don’t accept them blindly either, particularly when they compare you with others. Because you don’t know the hidden variables. You don’t see all the advantages and disadvantages that they have accumulated in every facet of their lives⁴

Use ‘successful’ people in your organisation as inspirations, not as deceptive comparisons.

Clarify what success, health and happiness mean to you. Forge your own path towards them.

Keep them as your true north while navigating the job you are in.

Active remembrance of Happiness

The idea in this article may be the most important one you have ever come across.

But you will forget reading it.

I, too, will probably forget writing it.

Because we are humans. When those crazy deadlines are approaching, or when our family upsets us, we will be tempted to lean away from relationships, and more towards our jobs.

After all, little acts of love to your wife won’t show up in your CV. Or, you will not get career promotions by being a wonderful mother.

So you need to periodically remind yourself of what is most important in your life, rather than what seems important at your job now.

Better still, share this awareness with your loved ones, and ask them to remind you from time to time.

Tell them you want to focus more on them because you are running a very long experiment.

If they ask, ‘How long is this experiment?’, simply say:

‘Well, about 75 years.’

Notes:

1
See Harvard Study of Adult Development. (n.d.). The Adult Development Study. Harvard University. https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/
2
Dr Waldinger is the fourth director since its inception. He is an author, professor and Zen priest. See Waldinger, R. (n.d.). About Robert Waldinger. https://www.robertwaldinger.com/about
3
The hopeful news is, giant companies like Amazon and Salesforce are taking employees’ happiness more seriously by hiring a CHO, or Chief Happiness Officer. Perhaps more and more workplaces will follow suit. See Schooley, S. (2024). How a chief happiness officer can save your business. Business.com. https://www.business.com/articles/how-a-cho-can-save-your-business/.
4
See Hanish, I. (n.d.) Comparing yourself to ‘successful’ people is risky. irwanhanish.com. https://irwanhanish.com/life-story/