In Spain and around the world we ask ourselves the same question: what does it mean to be happy? We long to feel that emotion that is experienced when we eat happy, but what does happiness depend on? How to get to it? This is precisely what experts from Harvard University wanted to find out.

What would happiness depend on?

“Over the years, one crucial factor stands out for the consistency and potency of its links to physical health, mental health and longevity. Contrary to what many may think, it is not about professional success, exercise physique or a balanced diet.

Don’t get me wrong, these things matter (a lot). But there is one that continually demonstrates its importance, as immense as it is enduring. The quality of relationships. This element is so important that if we had to summarize the eighty-four years of study in a single life principle, an investment supported by similar results in many other studies, it would be this: quality relationships, to allow us to live a happier and healthier life“stand out Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz.

Experts found that people who are more connected to their friends and family are happier, physically healthier, and live longer than those who are less connected. Their abilities, their brain abilities, would decline faster and they would have shorter lives than those who are not alone.

Experts insist on the importance of quality: “A good quality relationship means a relationship in which you feel safe, in which you can be yourself. Of course, no relationship is ideal, but those are qualities that make people flourish,” emphasizes Professor Waldinger.

What is happiness?

Etymologically, the word happiness comes from Latin congratulations, congratulationswhich in turn is derived from felix, felixwhich means ‘fertile’, ‘fertile’.

On Wikipedia it is defined as “an emotion or state of mind that a conscious being experiences when it reaches a moment of conformation, well-being or certain desirable objectives for the conscious individual have been achieved. It is considered that this state of mind and the factors that conditions are subjective, so each person can have their own concept of happiness.

Therefore, happiness is a subjective and relative condition. As such, there are no objective requirements to be happy: two people do not have to be happy for the same reasons or under the same conditions and circumstances.

Some psychologists have tried to characterize the degree of happiness through various texts and have come to define happiness as a measure of subjective (self-perceived) well-being that influences the attitudes and behavior of individuals.

For Sigmund Freud, happiness is something utopiansince he considers that, for it to be possible, it could not depend on the real world, where individuals are constantly exposed to unpleasant experiences, such as failure and frustration, and, in this sense, he maintains that the most that a human being could aspire to is It is a partial happiness.

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