Everyone Needs a Friend

That’s the most powerful finding that emerges from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest longitudinal study of the factors that contribute to a person flourishing as an adult. It began in 1938, with 724 participants drawn from disadvantaged families in Boston and from Harvard undergraduates, and was subsequently expanded to include spouses of the participants and more than 1,300 descendants.

The current director of the project, Dr. Robert Waldinger, and his co-director Marc Shulz, wrote a book in 2023, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Largest Study of Happiness, summarizing the findings to date. And the clearest finding was: Strong relationships keep us healthier and happier. Older couples (into which category I suppose I now fall), for instance, in deeply attached relationships, where they know they can depend upon their spouse, experience little diminution in their moods, even when they are in physical pain.

One of my walking partners (incidentally, a great way to deepen friendships) told me last night about an article he’s been saving for decades written by a hospice director. She wrote that the most frequent regret of people approaching the end is: I wish I had devoted more time to family and friends. Almost no one, Waldinger says in a TED Talk, expresses sorrow over not having been richer.

Bottom line — social connection is good for us, and loneliness is toxic. In any given year, those suffering from prolonged loneliness are 26 percent more likely to pass away than those who do not.