Aristotle, the legendary Greek philosopher, said,
Man, by nature, is a social animal
But are we really? If so, what degree of importance does a rich and abundant social life play in a person's life? Hopefully, my anecdotes over the past few months (along with some research because that's what we researchers do) can help answer this question.
November 2024.
Peak master thesis season.
It's the culmination of the past 5 months of work done at one of the leading research centers in Germany.
As the deadlines approach and reports must be submitted, things are getting hard to handle. With the huge mountain that is finding a job in a foreign country looming ahead, I realized I needed to crank things up a notch. And so I did.
A few all-nighters here and there helped me complete most of the reports. The thesis seemed to be going well. But things didn't look promising for the future. I was handed two rejections back to back from positions I believed I fit like a dovetail. My confidence was shattered. Rejections are normal, but what especially hurt was how one of the rejections was handled. Though I have come to terms with it now, at that juncture it stung.
During these arduous times, a few people stuck by my side and helped me waddle through the swamps. These people listened to everything I had to say. They helped me clear my mind from negativity and let me express myself sans judgment. Having people who supported me had an immensely positive effect on my mental health and pushed me to give my best one step at a time. The master thesis is a period of learning and growing, and for me, this was a huge learning lesson on how important loved ones are.
Cassie Mogilner begins her seminal research article titled "The Pursuit of Happiness: Time, Money, and Social Connection" by outlining the results of a survey conducted on American university students. It is interesting and perhaps not too surprising that happiness was chosen by the students as the emotion they associated with money. Richard Layard claimed in his book, "Happiness: Lessons from a New Science", that Europe has seen a surge in happiness levels with lower working hours. This is in stark contrast with the push nowadays to work longer hours to earn more money, which could be used to provide for the family. However, a plethora of research has been carried out to underscore the importance of fostering loving relationships - one of the strongest indicators of happiness.
A paper published in 2004 showed how people were the happiest when indulging in interdependent rather than independent activities. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the bestselling book Flow, published a paper titled "Happiness in Everyday Life: The Uses of Experience Sampling" in 2003, which discusses the various factors involved in the feeling of happiness in everyday life. Noteworthy for me again was the difference in happiness levels in a person while being alone compared to when in the company of a friend. A measure called the happiness score, showed the highest mean value for a person when they spent time talking to their friends (z = 0.35) and was quite low while doing menial chores or work-related tasks (z = -0.11 and -0.3 respectively). Cassie Mogilner, whose paper we discussed earlier, conducted a survey to understand the effect of priming people on time and money and the results were fascinating. When people are primed to focus on money, they work more and socialize less. On the flip side, people primed to focus on time spent more time socializing.
Honestly, I am probably not the best person to answer this, but I can perhaps share my experience in the hopes that it may help someone. I have to provide the mandatory disclaimer of course - these are just my opinions based on my subjective experience. The person reading this may have had a different experience from myself, which may have led to them developing a different approach and ideology towards life. Friendly discussions are invited, but please do not take this as an attack on your thoughts and a denial of your personal experience. We all come from different places.
