Why Everyone Needs Social Groups to Be Happy
When the time for the tryouts came, I was terrible. I was a good athlete but needed help to do everything. I could make all sorts of shots consistently but needed better form. I did know any of the fundamentals, and the kids that had been practicing together all had the fundamentals. I would have made the team if I had sought them out and tried to practice with them.
I fell into a deep funk when I did not make the team. I stopped riding to school with my girlfriend and ignored her. She did not care—but I assumed she would not accept me. I gave up trying to be friends with the popular kids. Surprisingly, they started calling and asking me to do things, but I avoided them. I avoided my girlfriend until she eventually broke up with me. The popular kids also stopped calling me. I stayed home, watched television after school, and fell into a deep funk. Finally, I joined a club basketball team weeks later and decided I needed to pick myself up and learn again. However, the most significant thing was feeling worthless after being excluded from the group I wanted to be part of.
The smartest thing I did was pick myself up and join the club team. Over time, I became much better at basketball and even skilled. I started enjoying the game but felt like a loser for not being part of the group I wanted to be part of. I felt excluded and not good enough—as I had somehow failed.
Throughout my life and career, I have watched others do everything possible to be part of the best groups and feel included. In middle and high school, people were driven to be part of certain social groups and teams. Feeling excluded from these groups was the source of great disappointment. An inability to feel included often resulted in people abusing substances, being depressed, and, in other cases taking drastic action.
If you attend a competitive high school, the athletes tend to feel the best about themselves and have the most self-confidence. Later, the kids get into the best colleges, are the members of the best groups in colleges, get the best jobs, and get into the best professional or graduate schools. All around us, we are struggling to earn accolades and get the qualifications that will enable us to be accepted into the best social and professional groups. Many of our lives are about understanding the rules associated with getting accepted.
My daughter is a high school sophomore and is already being taught the rules to get into the best colleges and how she needs to look on paper to gain acceptance to the best schools. She is getting this information through osmosis from her peers, from her school, and reading countless forums and other stuff that gives her the grounding to understand to be part of various groups and be accepted by them. She feels a tremendous lack to the extent she does not feel included in certain groups of people she might have been friends with when she was younger.
Some of my most significant victories and advancements in life came when I asked others for help. I told people I needed them, had done my best for them, or the example they set for me, and asked them if they could help me. I've done this with teachers, employees, significant others, doctors, advisors, and others and told them I needed their help. I could not do something without them. I needed them. Being vulnerable and asking for help has turned around my finances, career prospects, social engagements, romantic life, spiritual life, health, and more. When I have let others know that I need them and could not do it without them, most people respond positively to this. It does not make me look weak. It is not an acknowledgment of failure. It is an admission that I am connected to others, part of the human race, and need help.
In various social groups I have been part of, the people who act like they do not need others and come across as isolated and independent from others are the most isolated and kicked out of various groups. People do not want to include people who feel they are not part of groups and want to exclude them.
When I was in college and joining a fraternity, all sorts of unpleasant hazing went on. Without getting too far into it, it was incredibly unpleasant. The exact sort of thing that you would expect would turn most people away—five gallons of ice water was dumped on my head from a porch in the middle of winter; I was made to eat dog food with hot sauce on it, repeatedly woken up in the middle of the night and requested to run around town on foot to gas stations miles away to buy cigarettes, forced to drink twelve plus warm cans of beer in less than 30 minutes until I threw up, blindfolded and criticized by multiple people, screamed at, told I was worthless and more. This sort of hazing went on for months. Why would anyone in their right mind go through this?
I have had a group of people that make me feel accepted and a part of them. As a young kid, I went through it and was willing to tolerate it because I was showing the group that being part of them was more important than my pride. Desperate for acceptance, I allowed people to humiliate me, treat me poorly, and sublimate my ego to show the group how much they meant to me. In return, I was part of a fraternity and a small group of men who were close to me and supported me throughout the rest of college. They gave me a place to live, a readymade social network, and constant friendship; this friendship and camaraderie last to this day.
In contrast, many people tried to join these groups and were pushed out and turned off. They did not want to tolerate the treatment, thought they were more important than the group, and suffered for it. They were blackballed, socially isolated, and made to feel inferior. It drove many of them to have what appeared to be breakdowns and become extremely upset. It triggered profound feelings of isolation and an unwillingness to cope. To a great extent, not feeling included in these groups and feeling pushed out or unable to join created feelings of negativity so strong that they never went away. Feeling accepted and a part of a group is essential to people.
I'm in social groups where people go along and can get along well, and others do not. People who cannot get along in social groups and feel excluded generally cannot do so because they appear too out for themselves and are not seen supporting the group. The person may be too power-hungry, have goals that conflict with the group, or be against the group somehow. They have a self-serving agenda against the group's needs to survive and do well.
People, groups, and others want nothing to do with people who threaten them or make them feel isolated in some fashion. Some of the greatest mistakes I have made in my life have been when I have made others feel like they do not belong in various groups. Some of the people who have become the most indebted to me seemed to like me the most and have my back were people I made to feel part of various social groups and welcomed. We remember people positively that help us along socially and remember people negatively that hurt our membership and feeling included in groups.
We need social groups to feel like we belong to something. Feeling like we belong, our connection, a sense of identity beyond who we are as individuals, and more. These groups help reflect to us that we are okay, liked, and needed by others. When we do not feel supported by others, the opposite occurs. We feel alone, mentally isolated, and like we can do nothing. Feeling connected is among the most important aspects we need for survival.
At various points in my life, I have gone through periods where I lacked connection with others around me. The year after I graduated from law school, I worked in a small town in Bay City, Michigan. I was living with a woman I was not in love with and who made me feel alone. It was not a good relationship and had never been one. I also worked with someone with political and other values I did not understand and felt excluded. Feeling very alone, I answered the door to my townhome one day, and two missionaries from the Church of Later Day Saints were standing there. Are wanted to spend time with me and tell me about their religion.
They looked like friendly people; I was bored and feeling isolated, and my girlfriend was out of town and invited them in. Over the next several weeks, they continually came by, did various prayers and exercises with me, and made me feel included in their activities. Until they did not, they told me that they disapproved I was living with my girlfriend, and until I kicked her out of my house and stopped living in sin, they did not want anything to do with me, and I was not even welcome to come by their church. I was stunned by this and decided I had heard just about enough. Before this, I had enjoyed my time with them, visiting their church and the camaraderie and inclusion they gave me. I realize this is what groups like theirs do for people—make them feel included and like they matter. The second they told me I was omitted, I felt terrible.
Once that fell apart, I began to feel even more alone. I was working in a job where I did not see eye to eye with the people I was working with, and that ended. Therefore, I was not only isolated without the religious group but jobless and without a group to call my own. Shortly after that, because of my stress, my girlfriend had an affair and decided she needed to leave me as well. She told me the man she had an affair with had said something: "No man is going to be happy if he does not have a job or something to fall back on."
I felt completely unsupported and realized I was alone and needed to figure everything out myself. I had no other choice.
I left the small town I was working in, sent many applications to law firms in California, and soon found a group where I felt accepted and was around like-minded people. This made a massive difference for me and changed how happy I was. When I had a group, my girlfriend returned to me and was there and all in. Taking her back was a huge mistake, but I realized it was contingent on me having a group and a job to support us. It never stopped being that way. Little did I realize being with me would have more to do with the quality of the group and people I was with, and if they changed, she would no longer stay with me. This is precisely what happened when she found greener social pastures.
When I was in ninth grade, I moved to a new school, and one of the prettiest, most popular girls in the class immediately took an interest in me. She went out of her way to see me, carried on lengthy phone conversations after school, did things with me on the weekends and after school, and made herself available. What happened with her was pretty enjoyable, however. She refused to be my girlfriend. She kept asking me what men I had made friends with, trying to get me to join various social groups. She kept steering the conversation back to that whenever I would ask her about us formalizing our relationship. I realized that her being with me and having a more committed, formal relationship was contingent on me being accepted and part of a social group. Your ability to be accepted by social groups and part of some social groups will often determine your access to romantic partners and social opportunities. People believe in this stuff and take it seriously.
Most people who are the unhappiest, most isolated, most depressed, and most troubled in the world are very much alone. They do not have families, employers, social groups, religious groups, or others to support them. Being alone without social groups is one of the most dangerous things you can allow to happen to yourself. The quality of your life and people will largely determine how happy you are and feel.
Some of the happiest periods of my life were when I was part of social groups. Some of the most painful periods of my life were when I felt alone and excluded from social groups. Over the several decades of my life, the most isolated I have felt, the less happy I was. The more connected I felt to others, the happier I was. This is how it has gone for me; you are likely, not alone. This is why being part of social groups and feeling accepted is crucial to success.
I have felt excluded and unable to join the social groups I wanted to be part of before. These were some of the more painful periods of my life because feeling excluded made me think that I was somehow lacking and unworthy of other social relationships.
In seventh grade, I went to a new middle school, and an essential social group revolved around making the seventh-grade basketball team. I had no idea why this was, but being at a new school, I could see that the most popular kids were all going out for the basketball team. The most popular lunch table was for the kids going out for the basketball team. The kids whom the girls seemed most interested in were all going out for the basketball team. The kids who were the best dressers appeared to have the most fun after school, and seemed socially cohesive were all going out for the basketball team. I looked around and saw this and believed that my key to success and doing well was connected with being on the basketball team.
I got a girlfriend then, and she went out for the cheerleading squad—also a competitive pursuit—and I believe she expected me to be on the team. I felt incredible pressure to join and be part of the team and thought that all of my social and other pressures would be solved if I only made the team. I did everything I could to make the team and started practicing for hours after school, trying to make the team. I had my mother install a basketball backboard in my garage and practiced various shots for hours daily. The problem, however, was that I had never played basketball and did not know how to play offense, defense, or any proper form. All I knew was that I wanted to make the team and had to become an expert in shooting, dribbling between my legs, and more.
Compared to me, the kids I was competing against had been playing basketball together for years. Leading up to tryouts, they played together as a group and got better and better. They practiced passing, offense, defense, shooting under pressure, and all the skills necessary to be good at basketball. They all improved as a group while I relied on my motivation to improve. I did everything possible to improve, but practicing alone and without others was not in my best interest. By the time the tryout rolled around, I had thought I was excellent, but all I knew was the stuff I had taught myself. I had a false sense of confidence and did not understand what I needed to be good at the sport because I did not have others to learn from.
I find the entire recovery industry and what people do to recover from substance abuse quite interesting. Social acceptance, being part of the most desirable groups, and feeling included and welcome are among the most critical aspects of people getting better when troubled and having issues. When I live in Malibu, California, there are many rehab centers, halfway houses, and other places where people go to recover from their substance abuse issues. These recovery centers also have buses and other methods to transport people having issues to meetings around Malibu all day, every day, for people suffering from addictions. I've hired people who have worked in these recovery centers and am amazed by the consistency of what these centers do to help people recover.
Most addictions are such that the person suffers in silence. Either they abuse substances in silence, or their addictions cause the behavior in which the person is socially excluded (from family, friends, jobs, and society) and feels isolated there. They make mistakes when using substances, misbehave, and feel they need to be alone; otherwise, they will feel bad. I do not know everything that goes into people abusing substances and falling into addiction; what I do not is that these addictions serve to isolate people and make them feel alone and without group support.
A rehabilitation facility typically makes the person with the issues part of a forced social group. They are plugged into a group of others living in the same house, doing group activities all day long, and suddenly have a social group. This is the same thing that groups like AA and other recovery groups do. They take people out of a situation where they feel excluded and alone and put them in a group where they are heard, others are like them, and they have support.
Once you a part of a group and not isolated, a bunch of things immediately happen:
You feel like you belong. Instead of feeling isolated, coping with your feelings, and looking out for yourself, your group gives you an identity. You feel safer. In the not-too-distant past, they might have died if someone was forced to fend and be alone without a group; no one would protect them, help feed them and keep them alive. We need others at a genetic level to feel protected. Being part of a group gives us a sense of mutual protection and is better than being alone.
We need groups to feel like we have emotional support. The social group will be there to make us feel supported when we are sick, when things are going poorly for us, and to make us feel heard when there are things we want to discuss. If we are depressed or anxious, the social group will comfort us and tell us everything will be okay.
The social group gives us a sense of purpose. Most social groups have rituals and things they do as a group. They provide us with something to look forward to. They have shared activities that occur at various times. This sense of purpose makes life feel more meaningful, like there are reasons for us to endure another day. People in religious groups look forward to various dates; most social groups plan different dates and activities. These scheduled dates of the group give us a reason to exist.
Being part of social groups can improve our self-esteem. When we are part of social groups, we have opportunities for positive feedback. We can do things to help the group, and these activities will be appreciated by members and may be publicly praised. We feel like doing something more significant than benefits ourselves, boosting us. Realizing that others rely on us and appreciate us makes us feel good about ourselves instead of our actions just satisfying us. Groups may publicly recognize us for long-term services or our efforts to help us feel better about ourselves.
The opportunity to socialize with others. Most social groups are constantly bringing in new people, engaging in activities with other social groups, taking trips together, organizing meetings and get-togethers, and constantly interacting with one another. Seeing ourselves reflected back and as part of a group makes us feel included. These groups force us out of our shells and reduce our feelings of loneliness that come when we just operate alone.
Shared experiences with others. Social groups allow us to have adventures with others that are not just our own experiences. Experiences are better when they can be shared with others and are not just in our minds. A movie is more fun when we have a social group to share it with. A social event is more meaningful when there are others we can discuss and remember it with. The more shared experiences others have, the more they feel a sense of camaraderie as a group. These social groups may make people feel part of something larger than themselves.
Reduced stress. I've noticed that I feel less stressed when I get around others. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm assuming it is because it takes me out of my mind and distracts me from my daily worries. I have less stress and am more welcome and active in accepting social groups. Listening to other people talk, hearing their experiences, and feeling included and protected are all things that make me feel better about myself and more relaxed and better off.
Improve physical health. The right groups engage in physical and other activities that can make us healthier. Some of the healthiest groups—Seventh Day Adventists, groups in specific retirement communities—are part of social groups with various rituals, often enforcing group diets and particular behaviors.
Overall happiness improved. Feeling connected to others makes people feel happy and fulfilled. It gives us a sense of connection to others, essential for self-fulfillment and happiness. These positive memories and the ability to reflect on our value to a group in the past and future value are all important.
I have had a lot of moments in my life that made me unhappy and isolated. Those moments were around religion, my first girlfriend, and one of my wives.
When I was in college, I dated a woman that was a conservative jew. I did not understand Judaism any more than I understood Buddhism, but I was told repeatedly that I would never be part of this group. Every time my girlfriend would go home or visit her sisters, she would return and tell me she no longer could see me or wanted to because there was something wrong with me because I was not Jewish. I was treated to various theories about how Jews were more intelligent than others and more successful, and if I was not part of this religion, I could never be part of her life. One Passover, she took me to a seder with a very conservative family, and they practically kicked me out of the house when they realized I was not part of their religion. They even complained to the school's religious club, and my girlfriend was spoken to for bringing me to this group. Towards the end of my last year of college, she broke up with me and started dating a Jewish man.
Feeling excluded from a group is not easy because of who you are. I felt very excluded here because of who I was unwelcome. I realized there was no way any of these would have worked out and decided that I needed to find and marry someone from my background and religious upbringing. That did not work out either—I married someone Catholic and had a Catholic marriage. I was not Catholic, but I went through various rituals and attended classes so that we could be married. On the wedding day, the Catholic priest who agreed to perform the mass and bless it for thousands of dollars lectured my mother-in-law about how she should not be in a position of having someone like him marry her daughter if her daughter had done things right. On the day of our marriage, the mother and daughter were both made to feel excluded.
Years later, after that marriage did not work out, I started dating a Jewish woman. After weeks, she told me the relationship would only work out if I agreed to take classes and convert to her religion. Understanding what I had gone through the last time I was in college, I decided that made sense. After a rough start, we found some classes, and I started studying the Jewish religion. The instructors, and my girlfriend’s family, were all very welcoming, and I felt like the people I found had accepted me.
This was until I started discussing what I was doing with my girlfriend's friends and social acquaintances. They thought was I was doing was utterly bizarre and made it clear in no uncertain terms that I never would be part of what they were: "The religion is based on the experience of having shared experiences of being persecuted throughout history…." I was told. Others said, "The religion is mainly cultural, and that is what it is about. Even if you learn everything, you will never be part of the culture." The term "convert" was even used in a derogatory way by certain people to describe people that had converted years ago and never would be considered part of the religion.
These statements were so frequent that I was given the impression I would never be part of the group, would be permanently excluded, and therefore conducted myself as such. It made me very sad, realizing that I would never be included—at least around her group of people—is something I was trying to be a part of.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life and career is believing you can do it alone. We need groups of people to accept us and help us.
Many people believe they can do everything alone and no one can help them. People have chips on their shoulders against parents, schools, former employers, and others and believe that to succeed, they need to do everything alone. People bring this attitude to their job searches, financial lives, psychology, fitness, and more. Many people do not believe in religion because they feel no outside power can help them. Many people are incredibly isolated, angry, and helpless because they believe they must do it alone. To the extent that people can help them, they feel these people need to be manipulated. Otherwise, they will hurt them. They take advantage of others, refuse to cooperate, and are woefully alone and isolated.
To be happy, we need groups of people; our lives and how we feel and do an individual will be based on that connection. We need groups of people who support us and make us feel good about ourselves. We need the most optimistic groups of people we can find that support us and our true interests. Not feeling accepted by groups and encouraged is devastating to us.
