With e-mail and voice mail and Internet commerce, we never have to see each other face to face if we don't want to. It's not that we don't know we're supposed to value our connections. A hundred heartwarming Hollywood movies and a thousand inspirational best sellers have reminded us of the truth of this. But we don't need anyone to tell us that relationships can be a real pain. Excepting the cruel reality of illness and physical disability, the main source of suffering in life is other people.
Connection is so hard.
We need each other but we drive each other crazy. But the catch is that we really do need each other. Hallowell cites a long list of studies that seem to provide evidence that connection is good for our health, while disconnection is a health risk. The MacArthur Foundation Study of Aging in America, for example, showed that the top two predictors of well-being as people age are frequency of visits with friends and frequency of attending meetings of organizations. The Alameda County Study, conducted over a nine-year period in the 1960s and 1970s, found that socially isolated people were three times more likely to die over the course of the study than those with stronger social ties.