Is Happiness Catching?

New York Times:

EILEEN BELLOLI KEEPS very good track of her friends. Belloli, who is 74, was born in Framingham, Mass., which is where she met her future husband, Joseph, when they were both toddlers. ("I tripped her and made her cry," recalls Joseph, a laconic and beanpole-tall 76-year-old.) The Bellolis never left Framingham, a comfortable, middle-class town 25 miles west of Boston -- he became a carpenter and, later, a state industrial-safety official; and after raising four children, she taught biology at a middle school. Many of her friends from grade school never left Framingham, either, so after 60 years, she still sees a half dozen of them every six weeks.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[bluecollarblogger]

11:23 AM on 09/15/2009

As a nurse and educator I teach my students that we all have within us an inborn value and can contribute to all those we come in touch with. Our contribution to the happiness of someone else can be a smile, a gentle touch, a kind word, but we all have something to contribute. What we offer is unique like a bouquet of flowers in someone’s life, the greater the number of contributors of happiness the bigger the bouquet. Sometimes the only flowers that people receive are the ones which we give with our joy, our happiness, our smile. I have found in life the more I allow myself to trust, to be happy, and to embrace those around me the more I realize that I am a part of this wonderful dance that we all are in together.

[bluecollarblogger]

11:23 AM on 09/15/2009

There was a time in our country that we as a society felt that “we were our brothers keeper”. Not that it was our job to do their work or to carry their burdens or to pay their bills, but of course it was not unusual to see neighbors helping one another, but that we were connected as a community, as a society. When our neighbor struggled we struggled, when our neighbor needed help during a hardship it was our duty, our honor to help them along the way. We had cook outs together, we played together, and we lived together through the hardest of times. We were connected by our common goals, ambitions, and joys. We lifted each other up in time of triumph and in time of sorrow. We were all better for it too. It was good to know that you were never alone, even when it seemed like you were. I remember the loss of a loved one; everyone was there, how the overwhelming grief was smothered with the love, kindness and friendship of my community. The pain became bearable. I remember as I set on the roof of my home the peace I felt after viewing the devastation of a tornado to my home, not because of my own strenght, but because of all the neighbors, the friends which were scattered all over my lawn helping out. A time of hardship eased by the love, the joy and compassion of my community.

[David M]

10:33 AM on 09/15/2009

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