We are a non-profit organization Humanity Integrated that is comprised of people who find themselves in the most interesting yet trying times of human evolution – the time of global crisis, which is the first stage of a profound change.
The more time, effort or work you put toward someone, the more you’re personally invested in them, and the more you like them and want it to work out.
Do you think this principle of liking people more via investing more in them can be applied in all social relationships, not just relationships among couples? If so, how? We look forward to your comments below…
Image: "Mark Zuckerberg has changed our lives" by Ulisse Albiati.
In 2005, a study was conducted proving that engaging in deliberate acts of kindness leads to increased well-being, with one caveat: it must be done in such a way that exceeds the individual’s propensity to be kind.
Specifically, engaging in an act of kindness per day, for a week, will not lead to well-being benefits, but doing, say, five acts of kindness in a single day, does.
Why is it that just doing little acts of kindness doesn’t really make you feel that much better? Like anything that’s positive for you, eventually you’re going to start taking it for granted over time, and it’s not going to make you as happy as it once did. There’s a term for this, and it’s called ‘hedonistic adaptation.’ Now there’s a trick to scratching this itch of the human condition, and it’s to actively plan out experiences that throw off the pattern.
So why don’t you try it for yourself? Go out and fill a day with doing the world some good.
Image: "Friendship" by Pink Sherbet Photography.
I did my doctoral dissertation on the health effects of social isolation, and what we found was that people who were socially isolated, i.e. people who were either not married, or didn’t have many friends and relatives, or didn’t belong to voluntary or religious organizations, had a mortality risk that was about 3 times as high as people who had many more sources of contacts.
–Dr. Lisa Berkman, director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, discusses research findings showing health risks rise for people who are socially isolated, especially older adults.
Also, here is Dr. Berkman’s abstract for her paper “The Role of Social Relations in Health Promotion“:
In considering new paradigms for the prevention and treatment of disease and disability, we need to incorporate ways to promote social support and develop family and community strengths and abilities into our interventions.There is now a substantial body of evidence that indicates that the extent to which social relationships are strong and supportive is related to the health of individuals who live within such social contexts. A review of population-based research on mortality risk over the last 20 years indicates that people who are isolated are at increased mortality risk from a number of causes. More recent studies indicate that social support is particularly related to survival postmyocardial infarction. The pathways that lead from such socioenvironmental exposures to poor health outcomes are likely to be multiple and include behavioral mechanisms and more direct physiologic pathways related to neuroendocrine or immunologic function. For social support to be health promoting, it must provide both a sense of belonging and intimacy and must help people to be more competent and self-efficacious. Acknowledging that health promotion rests on the shoulders not only of individuals but also of their families and communities means that we must commit resources over the next decade to designing, testing, and implementing interventions in this area.
Image: "008/365: Isolation" by Josh Pesavento.
Image: "Collaboration" by Michael Coghlan.
Everyone knows that when they feel happy, they smile. But research shows that the opposite is also true: When you force your face into a smile, you start to feel happy.
Image: "Smile" by Alan Cleaver.
The accuracy of the group is far greater than the individuals. We call this ‘the wisdom of the crowd.’
Image: "soma dispenser" by Troy McCullough.
In order to try to increase by however small amount the world’s reserves of happiness, if it touches you – please share it so that together we can spread the love quietly, gently person-to-person – that’s what internet is good at, isn’t it?…
–The Pig of Happiness: An original animated film by Edward Monkton. Watching it is likely to make you a happier person. Sharing it with your friends is likely to make them happier too. So spread the love & press play.
Voice by Geoffrey Palmer
Animation by Andy Veasey for Essence
Music by Simon Bass
Sound by Zak Kurtha and Scott Marshall for Angel’s Egg
Post Production by Essence
Produced by Giles Andreae
Image: "Peppa Pig and sisters" by Riccardo Palazzani
I have four-hundred-and-twenty-two friends, yet I am lonely. I speak to all of them everyday, yet none of them really know me.
The problem I have sits in the spaces between looking into their eyes or at a name on a screen. I took a step back and opened my eyes, I looked around to realize the media we call social is anything but.
When we open our computers, and it’s our doors we shut. All this technology we have it’s just an illusion. Community companionship a sense of inclusion yet, when you step away from this device of delusion, you awaken to see a world of confusion.
A world where we’re slaves to the technology we mastered, where information gets sold by some rich greedy bastard. A world of self interest, self image, self promotion. Where we all share our best bits, but, leave out the emotion.
Were at ‘almost happy’ with an experience we share, but is it the same if no one is there? Be there for your friends and they’ll be there too, but no one will be if a group message will do.
We edit and exaggerate, crave adulation. We pretend not to notice the social isolation. We put our words into order and turn our lives a-glistening. We don’t even know if anyone is listening!
Being alone isn’t a problem let me just emphasize; if you read a book, paint a picture, or do some exercise. You’re being productive and present not reserved and recluse. You’re being awake and attentive and putting your time to good use.
So when you’re in public, and you start to feel alone. Put your hands behind your head, step away from the phone! You don’t need to stare at the menu, or a your contact list. Just talk to one another, learn to coexist.
I can’t stand to hear the silence of a busy commuter train when no one want’s to talk for the fear of looking insane. We’re becoming unsocial, it no longer satisfies to engage with one another, and look into someone’s eyes. We’re surrounded by children, who since they were born, have watched us living like robots, who now think it’s the norm.
It’s not very likely you’ll make worlds greatest dad, if you can’t entertain a child without using an iPad. When I was a child, i’d never be home. Be out with my friends on our bikes we’d roam. I’d wear holes on my trainers, and graze up my knees. We’d build our own clubhouse, high up in the trees.
Now the parks so quiet, it gives me a chill. See no children outside and the swings hanging still. Theres no skipping, no hopscotch, no church and no steeple. We’re a generation of idiots, smart phones and dumb people.
So look up from your phone, shut down display. Take in your surroundings, make the most of today. Just one real connection is all it can take, to show you the difference that being there can make.
Be there in the moment, when she gives you the look, that you remember forever as ‘when love overtook’. The time she first held your hand, or first kissed your lips, the time you first disagreed and you still love her to bits.
The time you don’t have to tell hundreds of what you’ve just done. Because you want to share this moment with just this one. The time you sell you sell your computer, so you can buy a ring, for the girl of your dreams, who is now the real thing.
The time you want to start a family, and the moment when, you first hold your little girl, and get to love again. The time she keeps you up at night, and all you want is rest. And the time you wipe away the tears as your baby flees the nest.
The time your baby girl returns, with a boy for you to hold, and the time he calls you granddad and makes you feel real old. The time you’ve taken all you’ve made, just by giving life attention. And how you’re glad you didn’t waste it, by looking down at some invention.
The time you hold your wife’s hand, sit down beside her bed, you tell her that you love her and lay a kiss upon her head. She then whispers to you quietly as her heart gives a final beat, that she’s lucky she got stopped by that lost boy in the street.
But none of these times ever happened, you never had any of this. When you’re too busy looking down, you don’t see the chances you miss.
So look up from your phone, shut down those displays, we have a final act existence a set number of days. Don’t waste your life getting caught in the net, because when the end comes there’s nothing worse than regret. I’m guilty too of being part of this machine, this digital world, we are hear but not seen.
Where we type as we talk, and we read as we chat. Where we spend hours together without making eye-contact. So don’t give into a life where you follow the hype. GIve people your love, don’t give them your ‘like’. Disconnect from the need to be heard and defined, go out into the world leave instructions behind.
Look up from your phone. Shut down that display. Stop watching this video. Live life the real way.
–Gary Turk, “Look Up.”
Image: "Look Up" by Quinn Dombrowski.
![What Is the Best Example of the Principle of Interdependence? [Quote Poster]](https://mutualresponsibility.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/the-principle-of-interdependence_750.png)
The principle of interdependence is the key to the existence of nature’s entire system. The best example we have of this are the cells in the human body. They connect with one another through mutual giving for the benefit of the entire body. Every cell receives what it needs to exists, and applies the rest of its strength toward the general body.
–Professor Günter Blobel, M.D., Ph.D.