What a wonderful, insight packed piece! Each part could be opposed in itself and I hope you will unpack some of this in future newsletters.
We share many interests and connections. I often reference that amazing Harvard study. To me, the most one of the most important results was that close social connections were more important than social class. As you know, the study began with upper class male Harvard students and low income men from South Boston. In the US, we have this false conception, mostly driven by advertising, that money equals happiness. The truth is, that as long as we are not living in survival mode, all the additional money in the world only adds a small fraction of happiness. Close friends, someone you can call in a crisis at 3 AM, is much more important.
Braiding Sweetgrass is an incredible book and I, too am thinking about how I can be a good future ancestor. In my next newsletter, I plan to mention the importance of everyone having their basic needs met so that we can all make our unique contributions and have the best world for all. I'm looking forward to reading more!
Thanks for highlighting the social class piece in the Harvard study!
As for what you shared about money and happiness: I remember something along those lines being mentioned in the conference I wrote about in the post but I couldn’t find it in my notes so worried I would be mis-stating the conclusions so I appreciate that you shared it here! Life can get so empty when the our main activities are around accumulating more and more wealth than we actually need to survive and thrive at the expense of our relationships.
I look forward to your next newsletter post! Since I saw your one-liner, I knew right away we would click on many levels so I look forward to our exchanges here!
I really enjoyed reading this piece Reema. Such interesting research based insights. I often think about community and belonging, now through the lens of living with a chronic illness which can be isolating. I'm looking forward to the people watching post, big fan of it! 💛
Thank you Jane! There is a part of the Head Above Water book I recommended you earlier where Alshammari talks about community from perspective of experiencing of chronic illness which I am considering featuring in a future post. I also glanced quickly into few research about building age friendly and disability friendly cities and how they can actually benefit everyone but I will need to read them more carefully before I feature them here.
What a wonderful, insight packed piece! Each part could be opposed in itself and I hope you will unpack some of this in future newsletters.
We share many interests and connections. I often reference that amazing Harvard study. To me, the most one of the most important results was that close social connections were more important than social class. As you know, the study began with upper class male Harvard students and low income men from South Boston. In the US, we have this false conception, mostly driven by advertising, that money equals happiness. The truth is, that as long as we are not living in survival mode, all the additional money in the world only adds a small fraction of happiness. Close friends, someone you can call in a crisis at 3 AM, is much more important.
Braiding Sweetgrass is an incredible book and I, too am thinking about how I can be a good future ancestor. In my next newsletter, I plan to mention the importance of everyone having their basic needs met so that we can all make our unique contributions and have the best world for all. I'm looking forward to reading more!
Thanks for highlighting the social class piece in the Harvard study!
As for what you shared about money and happiness: I remember something along those lines being mentioned in the conference I wrote about in the post but I couldn’t find it in my notes so worried I would be mis-stating the conclusions so I appreciate that you shared it here! Life can get so empty when the our main activities are around accumulating more and more wealth than we actually need to survive and thrive at the expense of our relationships.
I look forward to your next newsletter post! Since I saw your one-liner, I knew right away we would click on many levels so I look forward to our exchanges here!
I really enjoyed reading this piece Reema. Such interesting research based insights. I often think about community and belonging, now through the lens of living with a chronic illness which can be isolating. I'm looking forward to the people watching post, big fan of it! 💛
Thank you Jane! There is a part of the Head Above Water book I recommended you earlier where Alshammari talks about community from perspective of experiencing of chronic illness which I am considering featuring in a future post. I also glanced quickly into few research about building age friendly and disability friendly cities and how they can actually benefit everyone but I will need to read them more carefully before I feature them here.
The people watching post is coming together ❤️