Being around happy people can have a positive impact on your own sense of happiness, and being around sullen people can have a negative impact on your own sense of happiness. That is one of the “earth-shattering” results of the vaunted Boston University 
Framingham Heart Study. Begun in 1948, this study is seventy-five years old (!) and counting. Although this particular finding is the outgrowth of a longitudinal analysis of a data-set that spans a “measly” twenty years, the results are nothing to smirk at (pardon the pun).
As stated in the objectives section of a PubMed abstract of the study, the first goal was “to evaluate whether happiness can spread from person to person”. Indeed, to further quote the PubMed abstract (this time from the results section), “People who are surrounded by many happy people…are more likely to become happy.” Now, lest you tsk-tsk the results away by suggesting that birds of a happy feather simply flock together, the authors pointedly emphasize: “longitudinal statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals”.
So, there you have it. Being around happy people unquestionably increases your probability of experiencing happiness. And, mind you, this is earth-shattering news, as one journalist and popular speaker put it (in bold, no less!), “Said another way, if you want to be happy, surround yourself with happy people…Amazing. Amazingly simple.”
Personally, what I found amazing about this – and I imagine many readers would share this sentiment – is why on earth was it necessary to invest such an enormous amount of time and expense into discovering something that ought to be so self-evident? Can it be that in the ivory tower people don’t experience the dampening feeling of grouch-proximity or the buoying feeling of a happy, smiling friend? But I guess that’s par for the course in Academia: it doesn’t matter how irrelevant or self-evident a matter may be, if you’ve got a grant and the tools to measure it, then why not.
Waxing quite serious now, I think it’s important to take note of a certain undertone (well, an overtone, really), and that is the implication regarding self-determination. Instead of offering a tool for increasing your chances for happiness, the study authors (in the conclusions section) opined, “People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected.”
Talk about turning a thing on its ear! I don’t know about you, but if someone would convince me that my happiness is dependent on the happiness of those I am around, well, let’s just say it wouldn’t do much to cheer my mood. I really don’t know where the study authors got that from, and I don’t think anyone would be willing to accept such an assertion. A person’s happiness is dictated, ultimately, by his own decisions regarding how to frame his life situations in his mind. His thought-patterns, if you will. Discussing this topic, HaRav Yaakov Weinberg zt”l once explained it as follows.
Imagine two elderly women living in the same old-age home, having a conversation. Mrs. A says to Mrs. B, “So, how are things?” Mrs. B responds, “Oh, don’t ask! I never thought that this is what it would come to. I put my best years into my children, and this is how they treat me in my old age? My daughter…my own daughter! She can hardly be bothered to visit her frail old mother once a week. And when she comes, what does she bring me? Practically nothing! A simple little flower, or a small chocolate. And my good-for-nothing son who lives half way across the world? Only once a week does he remember to pick up the phone to say hello to his old ma. I guess that’s all I am worth to them after all these years…” Mrs. B. then says to Mrs. A., “I’m sorry for giving you such an earful of my problems. Please, do tell me how are things with you.”
“Oh,” Mrs. B. gushes, “things are just lovely. I am so fortunate to have such devoted children who care so much about me in my old age. My daughter…she’s so thoughtful. Not a week goes by that she doesn’t visit me. And always with a gift in tow. A flower. Or a small chocolate. It just warms my heart every time. And my wonderful son. He feels so bad that he lives too far away to visit his old ma, but he never misses a week to call me. Can you imagine? Every week! I am truly blessed to have such wonderful children to gladden my heart in my waning years…”
Isn’t that exactly the way it is, Rav Weinberg emphasized as he concluded the lesson. Two people with the exact same situation, and one is miserable while the other is as happy and content as can be. It’s all about perception. How you view and frame the situation.
By all means, a person can go ahead and try to surround himself with happy people who will have a great effect on his mood. But, perhaps even better, he can try to cultivate the frame of mind and thought-pattern that will empower him to be the one lifting others’ moods.