As anyone who was alive in the 70s knows, happiness is a warm puppy.

My 12-year-old puppy is curled up at my side right now. Now that the mornings are cooler (and I stubbornly refuse to turn on the furnace), she is more inclined to cuddle with us. This makes me happy. Never mind that if I so much as twitch a muscle, she will leap up and start petitioning for food and a walk.

For the past 6 months, I have been following the story of this guy in New York City who has been trying to make no (negative) impact on the environment for year. This means a lot of things, but chiefly he is living on the 9th floor of New York apartment building without electricity, eschewing the use of the elevator, walking or bicycling everywhere, and eating only locally grown and produced food. He also isn’t buying anything new for a year. He and his family (he and his wife have one child and a dog) have been doing this for about 10 months.

This is all background because today he wrote about happiness and, essentially the role community plays in happiness. This feels true to me. The more connected we feel to the people around us, the more happy we are.