After all there is valid reason why our parents and our culture revolve around social circles. There is a good justification why we have such strong social culture: eating together from one plate (mead), our mothers drinking coffee together, our fathers hanging out in tej bets together to the youth chewing chat together all seem to have untended, unexplained yet paramount health benefits. Social gathering creates an atmosphere of easiness with each other, make us tolerant to ideas and jokes thrown at us, and increase our creativity by providing platform to crack our own silly jokes at our peers. Why do you think people from Harar are more tolerant, are at ease and sociable? We at Harar probably have the strongest social upbringing compared to the other part of the country and it is paying off. Our motto ‘Chat yegil, chewata yegara’ have produced resilient, tolerant and funny people.

There is a growing body of scientific literature that supports the benefits of social life or the risk otherwise. Loneliness can send a person down a path toward bad health, and even more intense loneliness, Live Science repots. The finding establishes direct biological link between being lonely and ill health. Loneliness can set into a motion a barrage of negative impacts inside the human body — but with additional social contact, some of the ill effects can be stopped. That means it is time to recognized and uphold those cultural values we inherited from our parents. Go out with friends and have a little chit chat, talk about this and that. By doing so you might be purchasing a priceless health benefits.

According to John Cacioppo, a University of Chicago social psychologist, loneliness is tied to hardening of the arteries (which leads to high blood pressure), inflammation in the body, and even problems with learning and memory. In one study, Cacioppo and Steve Cole of UCLA found out that a lonely person's body has let its defenses down to viral and other invaders. "What we see is a consistent pattern where it looks like human immune cells are programmed with a defensive strategy that gets activated in lonely people,"

In addition, loneliness raises levels of the circulating stress hormone cortisol and blood pressure, with one study showing that social isolation can push blood pressure up into the danger zone for heart attacks and strokes. Loneliness can destroy the quality of sleep, so that a person's sleep is less restorative, both physically and psychologically. Socially isolated people wake up more at night and spend less time in bed actually sleeping.

Now I have a partial answer why our parents despite living in abject poverty and destitute conditions are happier. Back home our life is intricately interdependent. Most of the people live that sort of life where one needs the other for mere existence. I remember growing up when my mom needed to make coffee; she would send me to one of our neighbors to get mukecha and zenezena, to the other to get jebena. The same can be said about, washing clothes, cooking wot and so on. But as silly at it looks to be, it was the nature course of living, according to this study. The reasons trace back to humanity's evolutionary history, when people needed each other to stay alive. Loneliness doesn't just make people feel unhappy; it actually makes them feel unsafe — mentally and physically. This powerful evolutionary force bound prehistoric people to those they relied on for food, shelter and protection, to help them raise their young and carry on their genetic legacy.

Now we have better financial resources than our parents do. This financial independent, subtly and gradually have created social independece and hence loneness in most our community. This new trend is eroding our cultural heritage and hence our health. I think it is time to brace for our roots and live the life we inherited from our ancestors. Go out and have coffee or tej with your friends. You can't underestimate the social and health benefits of it.