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Back in 1939, scientists at Harvard began a longitudinal study in order to “identify the psychosocial predictors of healthy aging.” The study, which is still running to this day, indicated that the single factor that correlated most strongly with happiness as you age is the quality of your personal relationships. Friendships are more important than wealth, fame, brains, and status.
Conversely, according to Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School, “People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely.”
The study doesn’t say how to keep your friends, however. Volumes have been written on the subtle social navigation that maintaining friendships requires, but if you avoid these seven deadly sins of friendship, you’ll be doing way better than a lot of people.
