Art Fettig, a friend of mine, passed away two years ago at the age of 91. Art was an international author and speaker, actor, playwright, and railroad executive.

We all know that having lots of warm, personal relationships, whether with family or friends, is the key to our health and happiness. Relationships are strong living connections between two people. They need to be intentionally fed and cared for if we expect them to thrive.

Kindness often gets dismissed as a trifling activity and yet nothing has the power to impact our life more and the results for being kind are guaranteed! Numerous studies show how kind people are healthier, live longer, feel better about themselves, are more popular, more productive, enjoy greater success in business, have better relationships and are happier than those who aren’t kind.

The above is an old Turkish proverb that I came across on Facebook recently. Picture yourself taking a car trip by yourself across the entire country. Such a trip would be long, tedious, and boring as you watch the mileposts slowly pass by.

This is the title of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece written by Arthur C. Brooks. He says that while it may appear that the world today belongs to jerks, “…the best available research still clearly shows that in everyday life the nice people, not the creeps, do the best at work, in love and in happiness.”

he Harvard Study of Human Development has followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than 80 years. The conclusions from this study have been published in a book titled, The Good Life by Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schultz PhD.

If you want to make your world a brighter, happier place, all you need to do are two things: 1) smile and 2) get to know the people you meet on a regular basis—the people who work at the grocery store, the bank, the post office, the restaurants you frequent, and so forth.

It’s truly amazing how many people resent even the smallest of changes. You hear them whining around and saying things like: “I just got settled into a comfortable routine and then this change came along and ruined it. I wish things would just stay as they are.”

During the course of pursuing your dream, sooner or later, the going will get a little tough. When this occurs, it’s very tempting to think something like, “This is way too difficult; maybe I should just give up.” What most people don’t appreciate is that any dream worth pursuing is going to have some tough stretches along the way.

Mark Twain had this to say about travel: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”