Is happiness only real when it is shared?

I watched Into the Wild this weekend, with my wife, and was moved by the movie. I can’t exactly put my finger on why I can’t stop thinking about it, but it was hard for me to not think about the story today. There are moments of personal triumph and moments of personal tragedy throughout the film that kept me glued to the television for the 150 minutes it was on… If you haven’t heard of it, here is a synopsis of the true story:

Chris McCandless graduates from Emory University in 1990 and promptly gives away his life savings while also destroying all of his personal identification to live off the land in search of answers to life’s most difficult questions, as Alexander Supertramp.

I highly recommend it.

In the film, Chris/Alex makes a stunning realization begging the question that is the title of this post. He states that happiness is only real when it is shared. I find that statement to be profound because we’re very interested in happiness at work, as it relates to health. I’ve written about Social Health and am exploring that topic more, as time marches on…

At this point, I’m more interested in finding out what others think about this, then I am in stating what I think about it. So please let me know in the comments below. Is happiness only real when it is shared? What do you think?