Richard Hogan: I challenge you to do this one thing — I think it could change your life

Richard Hogan. Photograph Moya Nolan

Now that we are nearly half way through January, and all those good intentions are slowly beginning to loosen their grip. I have a challenge for you, I think could change your life. 

But before I lay it out, I want to explain a little context to it first. The Harvard Grant Study, is one of the longest longitudinal studies into human happiness and life satisfaction. It started in 1938, John F Kennedy was in the first cohort. His journey with the study ended one November afternoon on Elm Street, 1963. 

But the study has been going strong ever since its inception. Cohort after cohort have been interviewed, data gathered, trying to elucidate what makes for a happy and meaningful life. Well, the results will not be life shattering. 

You probably know them already. The 86-year-old study revealed that life meaning and satisfaction is found in the relationships you have with your family and friends. I think we all knew that already, but sometimes that simple fact gets clouded in external ideas about happiness. We believe that if only I had more money, or if only I had a bigger house or car I would be happier. 

Like Lennie and George in Of Mice and Men, we struggle with the idea that happiness is out there waiting for us, like the mule chasing the dirt farmers carrot we believe, ‘one day we will get the jack together and live off the fat of the land’.

I work with many wealthy clients, who realised that once they found that elusive wealth dream their levels of happiness didn’t increase at all. In fact, the thing they believed would be the source all happiness, proved to be a false dream. 

That can be a striking realisation, happiness wasn’t in the thing you had so desperately pursued. 

There are these blue zones all over the world, that by all happiness metrics the people who live in them, live longer and happier lives. I have analysed these zones, and found a commonality among them. In Okinawa Japan, children have a social bubble known as a Moai. This is an intentional social group that children are placed in, those in the Moai support each other through life. It’s about connection and feeling a part of something bigger than yourself. 

True happiness is found in our relationships with others. I have a charity in the Philippines, and I have worked with the wonderful people of the Badjao Tribe for over 16 years. They struggle economically, they have very little of what we use as a metric for success in Western life, they are also marginalised by society, but they are happy. A moment in their company revels and incredible innate sense of happiness. They are all connected to each other. 

It is remarkable to observe. Even their houses are connected without doors. Three generations of one family living under the same roof, laughing and sharing in the complicity of life. In 2019 three members of the tribe came to live with myself and my family in Dublin. They had never been outside their village and there they were in Dublin, experiencing our culture. They could not grasp the concept of assisted living for elderly people. 

I’d try to explain it to them, but their cognition couldn’t process it. It was so wildly incongruent to anything they had ever experienced. Family, they had understood, lives together through life.

Which brings me nicely onto my challenge. I have done this before, and I have always received letters and emails saying it was the most profound thing they had ever done in their life. We all fall out with people, as we move through life. Friends will arrive and friends will disappear, Bob Dylan tells us. 

But if we lost someone along the way that we value or even loved, I’m asking you to reconnect with them. 

We often don’t connect, because we have a fear they will leave us unread, ghost us or just not reply. But that is happening anyway. 

So, I’m saying if there was someone in your life that you loved or really valued and you lost them on this sinuous journey through life, for whatever reason - reconnect with them. Maybe it’s a family member and you fell out over a will, or your partners don’t get on, or whatever the reason is -  reconnect with them. 

Send them a message, keep it simple and honest. And see what happens. In my experience, people who have done this task, have reconnected with people who meant an incredible amount to them in their life. Now, wouldn’t that be a powerful thing to bring into your life in 2024. Do you dare to disturb your universe? Living in fear of rejection often causes us to reject ourselves. Don’t all yourself to live like that.

 Be resolute and dare to be courageous. I would love to hear from you and how it went.