I was reading in a personal finance book that a person’s salary tends to be the average of the salaries of the people closest to them. This might be a statistical anomaly.
It’s probably the case that in our lives, all kinds of things tend to be the average of the things of the people that we are surrounded by, but it made me wonder if our happiness is also sort of the average of the happiness level of the people around us… and I think that it is!
I notice in my own life, when I’m around people who are in a positive mood, who are optimistic, and who tend to be happy, I feel that way, too.
The take home message for me, from this concept, is that if you feel like you would benefit from having more people in your life who are optimistic, happy, and generally enjoy themselves, then seek to add those kinds of people to your social circle.
You don’t have to ignore people who aren’t that way, but adding more in will likely raise the average, and raise your average happiness, too.