Being Happy is Good

This is tough but useful

I’m not a huge fan of strangers, and this means I’m not a huge fan of talking to strangers. So when I heard an initiative called “Talk to me” which tries to get random people to look up from their phones and connect with others, I was skeptical.

But it turns out that talking to strangers actually makes us happy. Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago has studied this and (with a student) published a study that found those who talked to strangers on a bus or subway ride reported a significantly happier ride than those who kept to themselves.

(Editor’s note: I’m somewhat lifted to learn that a control group of separate commuters predicted the opposite!)

“Participants were happier talking to anybody, not just selecting a person they thought might be interesting,” Epley says.

This is a global effort, on August 30th, London had it’s first “Talk to me Day,” and some (optimistic and happy) supporters planned events in cities such as Paris, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Kiev.

There’s quite a bit about this in a podcast, video from the Chicago, but I think this little quote is one we can, and should end with:

It's not pursuing those big Mount Everest type moments (of happiness) it's not the intensity of positive experiences that really predicts happiness in life it's the frequency of them.

So let’s all try to have as many positive experiences as we can. It’ll make more people happy and that’s a good thing.