Do more relationships add to happiness

Carnegie Mellon University researchers studied 169 randomly selected local people for two years, tracking their use of the internet and its effect on happiness and relationships. Sponsored by computer and software companies, the researchers were confident that the greater variety and richness of relationships established over the web would decrease social isolation and increase wellbeing.

Both sponsors and researchers were startled and disconcerted by the results. The more internet relationships were established and the more time spent on the web, the more lonely and depressed people tended to become. True, email and chat rooms increased the quantity of relationships, but these were shallow; and the time spent on them detracted from more important relationships with family and friends. Intensive, face-to- face contact with a few people turns out to be essential for security and happiness. Less is more.

The trend toward more but less rich relationships is most acute for the (apparent) winners today. Money rich but time poor, and great believers in the market, they buy relationships there. I don’t mean that they use prostitutes; although it’s remarkable that many of my acquaintances who suddenly become rich immediately suffer marital difficulties, not entirely unrelated to their strings of affairs. (With more money, they want more relationships, not realizing that more is less.)

What I do mean is that the winners contract relationships with a bewildering array of professional service purveyors: personal trainers, personal assistants, personal coaches, pedicurists, shrinks, massage therapists, food consultants, hypnotists, aromatherapists, tennis coaches, communications advisers, spiritual guides, and God knows who else.

“Be good to yourself,” they say. The marketing patter is working. Between 1990 and 2000, for example, the number of personal trainers in the United States doubled, to over 100,000. When I was a management consultant, my firm focused very much on the personal relationship with the chief executive officer, and prospered accordingly.

Successful people may have little time for life at home, so they buy attention in bite-sized chunks, conveniently packaged to fit the executive agenda. The army of household assistants take care of the family, while the personal service providers pamper the breadwinners.

It’s all a ghastly mistake. Certainly each professional service provides something of value, but more is less — these commercial relationships substitute for the primary relationships that are essential for happiness.

The professionals win; everyone else loses.

Why is more affluence not translating into more happiness? Why does prosperity corrode personal and social relationships? It’s not the wealth itself — all other things being equal, increased comfort, healthcare, and knowledge should raise human freedom and security, and perhaps also generosity. It’s down to the way we think and act.

We’re becoming utterly transfixed by one obsession — more with more. We want more money, more goods, more friends, more relationships, more sex, more attention, more comfort, more houses, more travel, more gadgets, and more public acknowledgment. We are prepared to pay dearly for these aspirations. We worry more and spend more time, more attention, more energy — and, frankly, more of our souls and ourselves — to work to invest or pay for more stuff.

Yet the economy works well because it follows a different principle, that of more with less. Economic life is a constant quest for more with less: better, faster, and yet cheaper goods and services. Less is made more.

Human happiness — like true personal success — is immutably driven by the same laws: less is more, and more with less. There is an unavoidable tradeoff between quality and quantity. More means worse. It is only by focusing on what is genuinely important to us — the few people, relationships, activities, and causes that we really care about — that we become centered, authentic, powerful, loving, and loved. There is no other way.

The way to enjoy more with less in relationships and life is plain:

• Create more with less in your work life, gaining more money and enjoyment with less time, without eating into your family and personal life.

• Gain more with less by saving, so that sooner or later you will have the investment income to pay for the lifestyle you want and are not dependent on an ultra-demanding job.

• Focus on less is more: what is important for your happiness —satisfying work, a sense of personal purpose, and above all a few high-quality relationships — which require, and will amply repay, unstinting time and emotional commitment.