Why join your state opticians association, your national optician’s association or other professional associations? According to social scientists, belonging ups our Satisfaction With Life (SWL) quotient. One of the lessons learned from living through the COVID-19 pandemic is that people need people. Who are our people? For most of us, family and personal friends are our people. “We tend to identify with groups that share our values, interests and life priorities, as well as those who support us in times of crisis, and we can see how this would link to happiness,” states Dr. Juliet Wakefield, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University and the study’s lead researcher, examining the psychological effect of belonging to groups.