I'm Gretchen Ruben and I'm Elizabeth Kraft and this is a little happier. Gretchen, I am joining

you this week on a little happier to talk about a holiday hack. Yes, and this holiday hack is to

say yes if you can. And how exactly is that a hack? It's a hack for this reason because decision

making is exhausting and every time we have to decide it takes a little bit of our energy or self-control.

And so if you can, it makes life easier if you sort of have a default choice. One of the aspects

of the holidays is we're all faced with a lot of options. Do you want to do this? Do you want to

go there? Are you going to show up? Are you going to not show up? And obviously you don't want to

do anything that's completely contrary to your nature or your values, but the fact is the happiness

research shows overwhelmingly, and this is something that ancient philosophers and contemporary

scientists agree on, that a key to happiness, maybe the key to happiness is relationships.

And having strong bonds with other people is really important. And so anything that deepens our

strengths and our ties to other people tends to make us happier. And one of the ways that you deep

in or broaden your ties to other people is by showing up to stuff. So it's like, stay for the

office holiday party. Go to the school holiday show. The secret Santa exchange that you don't

feel like buying a gift for. Do all those things. Say yes. Say yes if you can't because it can really

be tempting when you have a lot on your plate. And definitely for most people the holiday is the

time where they feel like they have a lot of things to manage a lot of stuff going on.

It can be really tempting to skip things to just say like, I want to make my life easier. I want

to cut things off my to-do list. But in the end, it is showing up to the secret Santa exchange

that that's the kind of thing that really does in the end boost happiness because it makes us

closer to other people. Yeah. And I think sometimes people go, well, these are people I only see

once a year at a holiday party. So why should I bother? But it's like, that's all the more reason to

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