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A 75-year-long study just revealed the key to happiness, and most of us are getting it so very wrong.

A 75-year-long study just revealed the key to happiness, and most of us are getting it so very wrong.

There are lots of things that can contribute to happiness and fulfillment, and they vary with each individual. A 75-year-long study, however, has found one common element that's believed to play a pivotal role in most people's genuine, longstanding happiness.

Good ol' fashioned friendship.

This study, which is considered the longest ongoing study on human happiness, started at Harvard University in 1938 with 724 men, 60 of whom are still alive today (women were added later because misogyny). After decades of observation, one of the study's leaders, Robert Waldinger, came to this conclusion:


"Good relationships keep us happier and healthier," he stated in a TED Talk on the subject.  

That's right, friends. You don't have to make millions of dollars a year or write the next bestselling vampire/werewolf/wizarding world novel to feel joy. It's as simple as forging strong bonds with a few people whose general presence you appreciate.

Or is it?

Perhaps it is in some countries where loneliness hasn't reached epidemic levels, but here in America, making and holding onto friends is much easier said than done.  

According to a new study, making new friends is incredibly difficult for Americans. In fact, the average American hasn't made a new friend in five years.

Sure, you may have made some casual connections, but we're talking someone you'd want to hang out with at least once every couple weeks here — at least, that's the best many of us overworked, underpaid millennials can do at the moment. It's not easy to let new people into our weird little worlds, which is why most adults only boast five true friends on average. Those longtime friends often stem from our childhood/formative years when, you know, work and life seemed far less overwhelming.

The study, which was performed by OnPoll on behalf of Evite, polled 2,000 Americans, and while 45% said they had no problem going out of their way to make new friends, when it came to actually taking action, things like work, family and a lack of hobbies often impeded them.

Our general addiction to technology doesn't help either. It's so easy to just shuttle between work and home all the while existing within our little tech/online bubbles. Those bubbles often trick us into thinking we have a seemingly endless list of "friends" from our past and present when in reality we haven't seen 98% of them in over five years. And online connections are no substitute for in real life connections, no matter how you slice it.

So yes, isolation and loneliness are bad for us, and it is hard to make new friends as an adult, but it's far from impossible. Kati Morton, therapist and relationship specialist has some great tips.

In fact, she has a whole series of YouTube videos on various mental health issues, especially having to do with human relationships and socializing, that are absolutely worth a watch. Based on her experience with patients, Morton says one of the most common impediments to making new friends stems from not knowing how to initiate a conversation.

To that she says you have to figure out what types of people you want in your life before you go looking for friends, and then make a hard commitment to do it regularly. Whether you join a friend meet up service, or specific activity group that appeals to you, just like with dating, it's best to go in there having a clear idea of the relationship/type of friend you're looking for.

I know, I know, still easier said than done, but like with anything else, when you continue to make the effort to step out of your blue light-filled comfort zone, look someone in the eye and say, "hey, how's it going?" the easier it will get. The worst that can happen is you make another casual acquaintance you'll never speak to again. The best is you'll have a new buddy who loves/hates brunch as much as you do.

Joy

Homeless man catches family's two children and dogs dropped from burning apartment building

"He was right underneath and he was like 'Yes, throw your daughters out, I'm going to catch them, I'm going to get them.'"

Man catches entire family as they jump from burning building.

House fires are devastating for families. In a matter of minutes, you could lose all of your belongings and a place to live, or worse, you could lose loved ones. A family in Phoenix, Arizona, recently found themselves facing the reality of their own home in flames. Claudia Jimenez told CBS News that she woke up trapped in her burning apartment with her two daughters, with nothing to do but yell for help in the hopes that someone would hear her.

The mom's screams were answered by Joe Hollins, a homeless man who was camping nearby with his wife. Hollins didn't hesitate to try to find a way to help. With no way out and the fire department still nowhere on the scene, Jimenez had to trust the stranger who was standing below.

"He was right underneath and he was like 'Yes, throw your daughters out, I'm going to catch them, I'm going to get them,'" Jimenez told CBS.

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Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
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Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

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Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

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Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

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Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

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