Archive for: September 2009

What is social contagion?

Harvard researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler have found that the happiest people are exposed every day to many small moments of contagious happiness. When you see other people smile at home, in the street, in a local restaurant your spirits are affected.   Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness.  Our behaviors are spread socially and the most surprising finding of this research is that it’s not the small cluster of long term friends that is crucial to being happy it’s the number of positive connections a person has every day. 

What this means is that each one of us has a remarkable ability to spread happiness. 

So how can you and I embrace social contagion and make a dedicated effort to help create these positive waves?

We have to accept life’s givens.  We have to consent to the things we cannot change. 

David Richo in “The Five Things We Cannot Change” writes the five unavoidable givens are

• Everything changes and ends
• Things do not always go according to plan
• Life is not always fair
• Pain is part of life
• People are not loving and loyal all the time

As a psychotherapist he found that when we acknowledge and accept these we can find peace and sustaining happiness.  Sometimes these givens can seem like the universe is playing a cruel joke on us.  When we accept them we are really saying yes to our humanity. The givens can become gifts. 

Last night the Detroit Tigers honored Ernie Harwell at Comerica Park.  For years the legendary broadcaster was the voice of the Detroit Tigers.  Yesterday he was honored in a bittersweet and emotional tribute.  Harwell at the age of 91 has an inoperable cancer.  He has always lived in the present moment and never became an old grump talking about how great the world used to be.

I have to believe that many fans left Comerica Park last night with smiles on their faces and not because the Tigers won but because they got to share in this man’s last public tribute.  They were all connected to the big wave of love and abundance that is his life. 

Everything ends; everything changes except our ability and willingness to spread happiness.  We can do it even in the face of this finality.  Ernie Harwell knows this and for that he will be remembered and honored. 

Today is the first day of school for millions of American children.  President Obama is going to deliver a speech encouraging children to take responsibility for their learning and dream big.   Amazingly some in America are suspicious of his motives, some fearful of the content of his speech and some see sinister political messages directed at the most vulnerable audience – our children!

Pardon me but we have sunk too low.  Perhaps we truly deserve the struggling systems that we have created.  Maybe we’re incapable of working together for the common good. 

In 1909 Frederick Cook and Robert Peary both claimed to have reached the North Pole. Neither offered any proof.  For years these claims were undisputed.  Despite this their respective supporters backed them, each side defending their position.  Today we know both claims were false.

Psychologists know that when the facts get in the way of our beliefs our brains are marvelously adept at dispensing with the facts.  We simply use this logic to get around the truth.

So what’s the truth here? 

We have a President who hopes to inspire and encourage children to value learning.  We have a political system that seeks to undermine even this small noble effort to make a difference.  We have a population so attached to their beliefs that the simplest action merits scrutiny and debate.

How can we collectively overcome our tendency to dispense with the facts whenever it’s convenient? 

We must all get over the need to be right.  Being right will not solve our problems, being right will not connect us to the common good, being right will only divide us.

Today I prefer to dream big and believe in the possibilities.  Without dreams nothing is possible.