5. Friendly and inspiring people

So here we go and take a closer look at point 5 on my list "what is happiness"...

people can have a huge impact

As humans we are social beings. That lies deep in our nature. It makes a big difference who the people are, that surround you. The influence of our family and friends, of the society we grow up in, of the culture that we identify with goes way beyond the obvious and easily perceptible. Of course we can often sense the influence. For example if our mother told us to do a certain thing, we often keep some of the learned behavior for the rest of our lives. In the first year of elementary school my mom walked me to school. We had to turn around a corner that was on a little hill and there she sometimes stopped and told me to turn my face and the palm of my hand to the morning sun to pick up energy. So we stood there for a few minutes, absorbing sunlight with our skin, eyes closed in total silence. I will never forget the feeling of the sunlight actually entering my skin and filling me with energy and joy. Now as an adult I still turn to the sun sometimes and remember these happy moments of early morning sun.
Other influence is less direct. We are not explicitly told what to wear as teenagers. Still it has an impact, what the cool kids around us wear. As a teenager I started to wear the looser and straight cut jeans from the male section in the same moment that my best friend started to wear them. We both agreed they were more swag and soon it became a normal thing to do for some of the girls around us. These influences are trends and they are not explicit, but still easily traceable.

And yet there are less obvious influences. Things that we see every day, but we are not even aware we see them and we consider them normal and don't even think about them until a person from another culture comes and tells us how strange these things are for her. For me that was the case with the daily interaction with the passengers on the subway. Born and raised in Berlin, I was riding the subway frequently for all my life. And I thought it was totally normal to get on the train, sit or stand somewhere and look down or at some posters, sink deep into your own thoughts and get off at your station. But I was told that it was the weirdest thing for people from other places. They said it was so awkward how everyone on the subway put so much effort into not looking into each others eyes. I was shocked. Did we all really sit on the subway trying to not look at each other? I studied it and found that there was some silent common agreement between all passengers to mind your own business. I never consciously agreed to that, I had never even thought about that before. But now I know how much I am a child of this city that I live in.




There are studies about certain phenomenons that occur to influence the people around the phenomenon a lot. For example suicides. It shows that every suicide in a community raises the risk of another suicide for all the members that are in the same community of the committer. Same with obesity. If you are surrounded by obese people, you are more likely to be obese yourself.
Now we can take this knowledge and turn it into something positive for our own happiness and the happiness around us. In the beginning of our lives we have not so much choice of whom to surround ourselves with. Our parents are a given thing. But already in kindergarten we can pick our little best friend. We can chose who we want to play with. And later we can chose the school we want to go to or the afternoon activities. Do I want to hang out with the skaters after school or am I going to be a member of a poetry club? Do I want to sit next to the loud and funny Danish girl or am I going to sit next to the quiet Turkish boy who is always sticking his nose into his Manga? Do I go to a school that mostly privileged and rich children go to or do I go to a school where everyone has some street experience?
And later in life we see that it is everything! The friends that surround us are so much of our lives. Our family and our neighborhood is what we interact with daily. It is huge. So be wise and choose thoughtfully. If you feel like the people around you are making you laugh, inspiring you with new thoughts and ideas, bringing you up when you are down, criticizing you when you are ignorant, and make your life worth living: you found the right people. If the people around you don't know your true wishes, don't share your passions and try to keep you on the ground when you want to fly: think about finding new people to hang out with.

Also it can be so good to find inspiring people online. I am so happy about all these women sharing many contents about their interesting lives. It gives me a more clear idea of what I want to do and how I want to be. Take Chimamamanda Ngozi Adichie for example. She is a superhero for me and makes me feel really good.





And if I ever want to have a child, how cool would it be to be an outdoor mom like Morgan Brechler for example? She gives me hope cause she delivers another picture of momhood. The picture that I see around me is not inspiring, maybe my own mom who stayed active and worked and had many friends was a good picture too, but a lot of moms around me are homely sad milk machines that can't pay attention to anything else than their child for more than 5 seconds. Scary. I don't want to be like that. So I needed another picture of a mom that I can identify with.

Also it is really good remedy to your own gender stereotypes to also watch females represent the sports and hobbies that you are interested in. Especially when they for once are not sexualised, but actually doing something. How awesome is that? Check out the nice daily life of this prosurfer.





Or these crazy women on their skateboards in Sweden...



Ishtar X Tussilago from Maceo Frost on Vimeo.


So which people in your life are inspiring you and part of the happiness you live?