"The Harvard Study has found a strong association between happiness and close relationships like spouses, family, friends, and social circles. “Personal connection creates mental and emotional stimulation, which are automatic mood boosters, while isolation is a mood buster,” says Dr. Waldinger. This is also an opportunity to focus on positive relationships and let go of negative people in your life, or at least minimize your interactions with them." https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

I have written many times, personally, I do not believe in happiness as a goal. Happiness, like sadness, is an emotion meant to come and go and from which we learn. I believe in ever higher baseline levels of contentment as the goal. I seek contentment, which is not settling but a hopefully high-altitude baseline, coming from within and connection to without. It doesn’t stem from the acquisition of attachments but awareness of connection to the world and the universe as a living, breathing, and heart-beating organism and from alignment of mind and soul and discerning my why — my drive — from discovering who I am at my core.