Michigan Today, an alumni publication at my alma mater, recently posted videos showing a Michigan researcher talking about happiness.
Christopher Peterson, a professor of psychology, talks about what makes life worth living, and about happiness, creativity and resilience.
He said something in the first video that simmers down the findings of his life’s work to one sentence:

Sometimes when I give a talk I tell the audience,
If you really don’t want to listen to me for the next hour,
listen to me for the next five seconds
because I’ll tell you what positive psychology is all about:
Other people matter. Period. I’m done with my talk.
Anything that builds relationships between and among people is going to make you happy.

In a story in the LA Times in July, Shari Roan wrote:

It’s pretty clear that eating a healthy diet, exercising, not smoking and not drinking to excess are factors linked to longevity. Perhaps the most ignored but potentially powerful strategy, however, is being a social butterfly.
In a study published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, researchers found that having social connections — including family, friends and colleagues — improved the odds of survival by 50%.

Or, as Barbra put it …

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLLvbLpM-RM&feature=related]

So it seems to me that good relationships are the meaning of life. They make us happier, they help us live longer.
Why is it then that we often don’t treat our relationships as being as important as our work, our exercise, our errands and all the other things that fill up our days?