Everyone wants to be happy. As Aristotle explains in “The Nicomachean Ethics,” happiness is the thing we desire for its own sake. We don’t pursue happiness as a means to some other good; it appears to be the final end people pursue in life. The other things we aim at – wealth, pleasure, relationships – we pursue for the sake of happiness.

Which of these pursuits – whether fame, money, relationships, or something else – genuinely produces happiness? Aristotle spends much of the “Ethics” exploring that question (spoiler: he thinks the practice of virtue is a key to the good life). However, since scientific data often persuades modern people more readily than the wisdom of the ancients, I want to take a different approach – though one that aligns with Aristotle’s thought in many ways.

Modern scientists and psychologists have taken an empirical approach to the question of happiness. In 2023, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz published, “The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.” The study in question is the Harvard Study of Adult Development, an ambitious project that began in the 1930s by tracking people from different Boston neighborhoods, asking them to regularly give updates on their lives, including health, employment, income, marital status, life satisfaction, and regrets. Waldinger and Schulz are the current director and associate director of the study.

What’s the key to a flourishing life, then, according to Waldinger and Schulz? “Contrary to what many people think, it’s not career achievement, or exercise, or a healthy diet,” they conclude. “[O]ne thing continuously demonstrates its broad and enduring importance: Good relationships.” The study shows conclusively that human connection plays an integral role in healthy development, longevity, and happiness. “People who are more connected to family, to friends, and to community, are happier and physically healthier than people who are less well connected,” Waldinger and Schulz say.

In other words, love trumps achievement.

In this assessment, the study confirms one of Aristotle’s insights from the “Ethics,” in which he wrote, “Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.” Aristotle is drawing attention to the fact that a cornucopia of worldly goods and achievements mean little if we have no one to with whom to share them.

Friendship and connection are ennobling realities. “[I]t is not only necessary but also noble; for we praise those who love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have many friends; and again we think it is the same people that are good men and are friends,” Aristotle writes, showing the importance of connection to human flourishing. He recognized that we are fundamentally social animals.

This doesn’t mean that one’s career means nothing or can’t be a source of happiness. However, it seems that the person who could be fulfilled by work alone, with no reference to any human connection, would be rare indeed. In fact, much of the meaningfulness of work derives from its connection to the social component: people find work fulfilling when they can see that it helps others, improves society, serves the community. Further, many people can find meaning in otherwise banal work when they see it as a means of supporting their family – in which case it becomes a labor of love shaped and infused with, again, the importance of relationships.

According to 20th century psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, humans find fulfillment in meaning. “Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a ‘secondary rationalization’ of instinctual drives,” he wrote in his seminal work. Frankl argued that meaning can spring from three main sources: meaningful work, deep relationships, and strength in the face of hardship. Here again we see the importance of forming strong connections with others. Aristotle and Frankl further agree that meaning can also be found in noble and virtuous endurance of suffering.

There remains one more facet of relationships and happiness to explore: our relationship with God. Many studies have found that religious people tend to be happier than non-religious people, who lack that central relationship to the divine.

“The finding of a relationship between happiness and religiosity is so established that many research papers take it as a given starting point,” Professor Stephen Cranney states in a DeseretNews article. He cites the Oxford University Press book “Handbook of Religion and Health,” which reviewed 326 studies on the connection between religiosity and well-being, happiness, or life satisfaction. Of those 326 studies, 79% found that religious people were happier than non-religious people, with only 1% finding a negative correlation, and the rest uncovering mixed results. Similarly, a questionnaire called the General Social Survey has found over the past three years of surveys that 1 in 3 frequent religious service attenders are “very happy,” while only 1 in 5 non-attenders say the same. The empirical evidence indicates that a relationship to the transcendent plays a big role in human flourishing.

Thus, the intuitions of ancient philosophers align with the findings of modern scientists: human beings are made for connection with one another and with a higher power. Fulfilling these aspects of our nature makes us happy.

This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.

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