Foreword
I WANT TO START THIS FOREWORD WITH A QUESTION… ARE YOU HAPPY?
There’s an academic journal called The Journal of Happiness Studies , and they’re trying to use the tools of research to figure out what it is that makes human life flourish and what produces joy. I thought this was quite interesting. When they looked at what distinguishes more happy people from less happy people, they found that there is one factor, one difference that consistently separates those two groups. What is it? I’ll bet you’re curious.
It’s not income. It’s not how much money you have. It’s not health. It’s not what kind of shape your body is in. It’s not security. It’s not attractiveness. It’s not IQ. It’s not career success. What distinguishes consistently happier people from less happy people is the presence of rich, deep, joy-producing, life-chang- ing, meaningful relationships with other human beings.
A guy named Robert Putnam wrote a book in this last decade called Bowling Alone. It’s maybe the most influential kind of analysis of social wellbeing in the last ten years (until this book!). This is one of the things he wrote,
“The single most common finding from a half-century’s research on life satisfaction not only from the US but around the world, is that happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of one’s social connections.”
In other words, the best predictor of whether or not you will live with joy and contentment is your relationships. In our world, you will see a half million media messages telling you that happiness is just one purchase away. Why do you think they call it a Happy Meal? In The Lost Art of Relationship, Dan explains that happiness is not what —it’s Who!
Of course, that’s not news to God because God made us that way. The Bible said this a long time ago. God created human beings, and then “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’” (Gen. 2:18)