There is a
moment in every woman's life when she looks at her calendar and realizes
something is missing – not a task, not a deadline, but a face. A voice. A
friend she hasn't called in far too long. This month, I want to talk about that
missing piece: your social life, and why it may be the most undervalued
investment you're not making.
In The
Happiness Advantage, Harvard researcher Shawn Achor spent years studying what
truly separates the happiest, most successful people from everyone else. He
expected to find the answer in intelligence, income, or achievement. Instead,
he found something simpler – and far more human: the strength of their
relationships. “Social support was a far greater predictor of happiness than
any other factor,” Achor writes, “more than GPA, family income, SAT scores,
age, gender, or race.” Not talent. Not money. Connection.
Guidance and
Explanation
We live in a
culture that treats social life as optional – the first thing we cancel when
we're tired, the last thing we schedule when the to-do list is long. We tell
ourselves we'll catch up “when things calm down.” But things rarely calm down,
and the people we love quietly slip to the bottom of the list, not because we
stopped caring, but because we stopped choosing them on purpose.
The truth is,
connection is not a soft, sentimental extra – it is biological necessity. Achor
notes that our need for social support is so fundamental that our bodies can
literally malfunction without it; chronic isolation has been shown to raise
blood pressure as much as high cholesterol or lack of exercise. We were not
built to thrive alone.
This is
something the world's longest-living women already understand. In Ikigai,
Héctor García and Francesc Miralles describe the moai – small groups formed in
Okinawa, where friends commit to meeting regularly for life, offering each
other emotional, social, and even financial support through every season of
aging. Some of these moai have lasted over ninety years. The women in them
don't just live longer. They live fuller – because they never carry life alone.
And yet, how
often do we learn this lesson too late? In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying,
hospice nurse Bronnie Ware recorded what people most wished they had done
differently before they died. One regret appeared again and again: “I wish I
had stayed in touch with my friends.” Not “I wish I'd worked more.” Not “I wish
I'd achieved more.” They wished for the people.
Life
Application
Build your own
moai. Choose three to five women who matter to you, and create a standing
tradition – a monthly dinner, a Sunday walk, a recurring call. Make it
automatic, not occasional.
Schedule
friendship like it's non-negotiable. Put it in your calendar the same way you
would a doctor's appointment. What isn't scheduled rarely happens.
Reach out
first, today. Think of one person you've lost touch with, and send the text
before you finish reading this column.
Trade
scrolling for calling. The next time you reach for social media out of
loneliness, call someone instead. Watching a friend's life is not the same as
being in it.
Invest before
you need it. Don't wait for a crisis to rebuild a bridge. The strongest
friendships are the ones fed all along, not only in emergencies.
A Real-Life
Story
A woman I know
– I'll call her Marina – spent years telling herself she was “too busy” for
friendships outside her immediate family. Work, children, obligations always
came first. Then, during a difficult season, she reached out to a college
friend she hadn't spoken to in nearly a decade, almost apologetically. Within
minutes, they were laughing the way only old friends can. That one phone call
turned into a monthly ritual. Marina later told me it wasn't just comforting – it
changed how she moved through her weeks, knowing that call was coming. She had
rebuilt, without realizing it, her own small moai.
Closing
Thought
Your social
life is not the thing you get to once everything else is handled. It is the
thing that makes everything else worth handling. Call the friend. Make the
plan. Show up. Because in the end, no one lies on their deathbed wishing they'd
spent more time alone – they wish they'd stayed close to the people who made
them feel less alone.
Next month, we
turn our attention to something equally close to home: your relationship with
money. Until then, keep your circle close – and keep showing up for it.
