Invest

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had good holidays—whatever and however you celebrate, and even if you don’t. I don’t make resolutions, but I do enjoy the hopeful freshness and blank-slate feeling of a new chapter.

This time last year I put a plan into place that has measurably improved my life. I decided to invest—not in a financial scheme, but in my friends.

I don’t know how it was for you, but the pandemic felt like it upended everything—daily life, of course, but also my connections. Seeing friends suddenly meant looking at them on a computer. Group gatherings became screen sessions of many tiny boxes. And for those of us with far-flung friends, the pandemic meant not seeing them in person—in many cases for years.

And yet, I also found it a tremendously clarifying experience. When so much of life was stripped away, what felt important? What did I really miss?

I really missed my friends—in particular, a few who don’t live nearby. Normally I’d visit each year or two—and we’d pick up right where we left off—but it’s now been four years since I’ve traveled. I realized how easy it would be to drift out of touch.

So, last January I reached out to a few of these folks and told them I wanted to prioritize our friendship, to be better about staying in touch. Life is busy and we’re all doing our own things, but these are the people I want to invest my time and energy in. They all agreed, and seemed happy to be asked.

Two of these people don’t actually like talking on the phone—but we’ve found what works. One talks to me while walking the dog, another friend and I have an after-work wind down on zoom. Occasionally I have an art date with one of them—we do some sort of low-key crafting project and chat. One thing the pandemic did was give us various ways to communicate.

There is so much research that says the most important indicator of health, happiness, and longevity is the quality of our social connections. It’s even more valuable if you live close to your friends. And the closer the better—if the distance is less than half a mile, your happiness probability increases by 40%.

I’m not able to live near to some of my dearests, but putting structure in place to help protect and support our friendship has made all the difference.

This time a year ago, I was feeling a bit too isolated and lonely in my life—despite having a lot of friends. Now I have certain dates I look forward to each month, because I know that’s when I get to connect.

Here are some ideas for ways to connect with friends that I’ve seen be successful:

• Set up a standing coffee shop date—weekly or monthly. For a long time I participated in a Saturday morning get-together with a group of friends that met in a certain coffee shop each week. A nice, low-pressure way to stay in touch.

• Book clubs, cookbook clubs, sport teams—it’s a little harder to coordinate with bigger groups, and the requirement of having put in work to read or prepare food or train for a sport, but these sorts of structured get-togethers can be excellent containers for community or friendship.

• Take a class/do a fitness activity/volunteer together—I have a few friends I hike or walk with, but I think it would be fantastic to take an art class with a friend. And last month I reported a story about a non-profit dedicated to feeding seniors and heard about the friend teams who volunteer as a way to spend time together, connecting and doing good at the same time.

• I think an unexplored arena is activities that can be done collaboratively that will make our lives easier. I’ve sometimes done batch cooking with friends—making dumplings, for example, to be frozen for future dinners, or canning big batches of pickles or making jam at the end of the summer. There’s a meme I see going around about normalizing running errands as a friend activity (we all have to go to the grocery store and post office eventually). And this coming summer I’m hoping to do some collaborative gardening, because many hands make light work.

Often it’s just a matter of making it a priority—of reaching out to those who matter and telling them that they do. If you’re feeling like the quality of your connections isn’t what you might like, perhaps this is the year to prioritize them. All the studies say it’s one of the best things we can do for better, longer, happier lives.

How about you? Are there any interesting ways you stay connected to your friends? I’d love to hear about it ❤️