The Value of Connections for a Successful and Happy Life

Why you should think of your relationships as a better investment than your paycheck

photo © Helena Lopes on Unsplash

My friend takes her new boyfriend to the airport, the business school program on the US east coast where thy met is over and he has to go back to Paris, his home. She is wondering if this wonderful but future long-distance relationship between the US and France will hold up. He has other thoughts and holds up a ticket and asks her if she comes with him. Just like that.

Like in a time-lapse movie scenes race through her head — I am about to start a job in some weeks at the east coast…I just rented an apartment…What the hell am I doing…?!?!

She took the leap. No luggage, just equipped with her purse she boarded the flight to Paris with him.

Relationship? Career? Happiness? Fear? Optimism? We don’t know what was racing through their heads at that moment. We can only imagine.

I was speechless when I heard this story my friend Carole told me about her life while we were hiking Mount Tam (Mt. Tamalpais) in the Bay Area some years ago. Wow! Amazing you did that, I said.

The story happened 25 years ago, and after some years in Paris, some places across the US, my friends are living in California, married with two young kids, and with great careers.

Here are 5 reasons why close relationships advance happiness and success.

A lifelong study proves relationship is the key to a fulfilled life

Here is the straight-up simple answer to what makes a good life: close relationships.

The simplicity in life. It can be so easy.

But we make it all complicated with our focus on advancing our career, money, and status.

And relationships are so easy to ignore.

What my friends were not aware of at the time is that at the very university they had their summer business school the longest study ever, a 75-yearlong research on adult development was still in full progress, The Harvard Study of Adult.

The program, with changing directors keeping the research going over decades, studied people from the time…