How to Be Happy

“You always move better with a smile.”

Marjorie Barstow, at a workshop in Sydney Jan, 1986.

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Hallo to you after a long gap from me - Jeremy: who is starting up his Daily again. 

(Must change that name).

Just a warning - I will be getting prolific as we approach the Berlin Congress, where I am teaching an almost ridiculous number of workshops (see below). Feel free to delete or unsubscribe below. I decided to use my Daily to limber up, explore ideas and prepare for my classes. Something I have tirelessly coached my trainees to do over the last two decades.

Now I am in London where I am rehearsing being a retiree and deciding whether I like it. However, my most startling discovery is that many others don’t seem to consider friendship in the same way I do. Or at least, my friendship.

In fact, it broke my heart.

Not London, but earlier in Japan.

For many people, relationships are transactional. For me, they are lifelong. Naively I assumed the same; until I started contacting “old friends” for no other reason than to say hi and hear their news. 

Awkward silences. No replies. Kind deferrals: “Lovely to hear from you, terribly busy now - will get back…” And they never get back.

What is going on here?

It seems a lot of people - unconsciously? - treat relationships transactionally. I do too of course, but not in the same way. The person serving at the convenience store is normally not a candidate for life-long friendship, but I thought a years-long work association is…

But others did not.

After 23 years in Japan, it finally dawned upon me that I had only managed to make one real honest-to-God friend out of the hundreds of people I dealt with. Once they were unassociated with BodyChance (my school), those I approached found no reason to interact anymore.

So what does it mean ‘honest-to-God real friend’? 

That’s simple - they’ve got your back, and you trust it 100%. It’s thought that the expression “I’ve got your back” arose among soldiers during WWII - and it literally meant that I would make sure no one tries to kill you from behind. Relationships between random soldiers become strong, and they endured beyond the war.

The longest study ever made* magnificently concluded that happiness had little to do with social status, money, where you lived, your profession or even your health. Can you guess what mattered most?

Yes, “I’ve-got-your-back” friendships mattered most.

Whether family or friends, those kinds of relationships generate happiness and make you healthier. Loneliness kills. It would also be fascinating to know - does this also improve the quality of your coordination? 

I’m betting it does.