We live in a social world, in which our interactions with other people, probably more than any other single thing, provide us with our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our life. In America, especially America, you might think that there would be a straight line correlation between the more money that you have and thereby the higher the happiness, but that isn't true. The thing about money is that it may or may not help bring you happiness, depending a lot upon whether your focus is upon money along with the power, security, status, and options that money may bring, or rather, whether your focus is more in tune with the recognition that while money has its place, successful relationships and meaningful interactions with other people, family, and friends, has a higher and more important value.
Long before civilization as we know it in our modern day age existed, we lived in more primitive times in which simple survival, literally on a day-to-day basis, was the objective of everyday life. In that life, in which there really wasn't much of a social safety net, because society itself wasn't all that safe or secure, where good health was problematic, and the future consisted of what needed to be accomplished the next day, the relationship of those that bonded together, was of paramount importance, because each person had his duty to the other. This joint dependency in trying times, created a life which may indeed have been brutish, short, and desperate, but had at its core the need for togetherness in order to achieve survival, if nothing much else.
Fast forward to today's world, and while family structures still exist, the vibrancy of such, are often problematic for reasons which vary from: ill-education, ill-health, substance abuse, ill-opportunity, ill-housing, selfishness, ill-decision making, debt, and various other things. Yet, through all the confusion and havoc of everyday life, people, friends, and family do matter, in fact, they matter the most. All of us want to be happy, or at least express that we do; we want to feel satisfaction and importance, in which these things pretty much don't require large monetary means to accomplish, but instead, involve the need of the investment of time, attention, listening, and interaction to achieve.
Just about everyone wants to be validated, wants to believe that they have value in this world, and oftentimes in order for that belief to come to fruition, it will come from those closest to them, that pay them mind, that smile and interact with them, as they try to see the world from the perspective of the other, in order to more fully comprehend who they are and what they are about. When we pay attention to our friend, listening to their words, monitoring their body language, and accepting them for who they really are, we become a true friend, simply for being there and actively caring about them.
If you really get to know those that surround you, really get to know them, by spending undistracted time with them in meaningful conversation which enlightens both of you, connecting with one another in ways that bond you together because of your mutual respect and acknowledgment of your mutual worth, than that binding attachment will allow you to bring out the best in each other, and to thereby unearth priceless happiness through the gift of faithful devotion to someone other than yourself.