That is a good summary of how I view this too.
It doesn't touch the issue of "whom you live with" though.
Time and motivation are two major influences on productivity with happiness influencing motivation. Non-productive human contact decreases time. Relationship valence, in-ex-troversion, and a host of other factors influence the valence of each human interaction. Positive human interaction valence increases happiness, though, like everything, it does come at at opportunity cost.
So negative non-productive relationships will decrease time and motivation, having a double-negative effect on productivity. Positive non-productive relationships will decrease time a...
What I want to get people to discuss here is obvious given the title. What has been their experience regarding who and specially how many people they live with, and how that impacted their motivation and happiness.
I don't want to peruse papers on happiness and productivity, because I'm particularly interested in anecdotal tales coming from a Lesswrong sample.
Three pieces of information seem relevant, so if that is okay with whoever comments, I'd ask people to tell us if they consider themselves introverts (recharge batteries by being alone) extroverts, or both. As well as their age and hometown.
The reason I want to have a fuller understanding of this is that I've slowly come to have a strong belief that the main problem with people I know who are suffering, or failing to achieve their goals, is living with fewer tribal affiliates than they "need". And that belief could very well be false or biased.
I'm equally interested in what people think in general about their friends' living situation: "Most of my friends who live with friends experience such and such emotion, but the ones who live with family experience such and such problems with motivation"
as I am in personal experiences.
Following a suggestion about creating topics like this before, I'll put my own case in the comments.