The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

were now practically illegible and dangerously irreplaceable.
    Once I started getting replies, I found an Internet site, HappyBirthday.com, that sends out date reminders, and I started the long, tedious process of plugging birth dates into the Web site and typing address information into a Word document. Tackling this nagging task was dull work, but, as happiness theory would predict, completing it gave me a big boost of energy and satisfaction. Having the computerized address list didn’t make me feel closer to anyone, but I think it will in the future, because it will be so much easier to stay close to people now that I have a legible, complete set of contact information.
    When I told a friend about my resolution to send birthday e-mails, he said, “But you should call! A call is so much better.” Along the same lines, when I started sending out “Happy birthday!” messages, I felt that I needed to send a long message if I hadn’t been in contact with a friend for a long time. Then I remembered a Secret of Adulthood (courtesyof Voltaire): “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Fact is, I disliked talking on the phone and knew that I wouldn’t call. Maybe I should, but I wouldn’t. But I’d send an e-mail. And I decided that it was all right to send a very short e-mail. The important thing was to maintain the connection—and if I made the task too onerous, I might not stick with it.
    I used HappyBirthday.com only for birthdays, but a friend told me that he also added significant dates from his children’s lives. “That way I can be reminded of the first date the kids talked, waved bye-bye, or whatever. It’s something nice to think about when I’m away at work.” That struck me as a very happy idea.
    Looking at my completed contacts list made me reflect sadly on some friendships that had faded. My address book held names of people who had once been close friends—but were no longer. In particular, I thought of a friend from high school. She’d been one grade ahead of me, and we were an archetypal case of the glamorous, hell-raising older girl and her studious, law-abiding, worshipful sidekick.
    Without quite knowing how we’d fallen out of touch, I hadn’t talked to her in more than a decade. I had her name on my list but no current information. I tried to get her phone number or e-mail address through our high school alumni office, but it didn’t have anything. Of course not, that was so typical of her. She has a very common name, so I wasn’t able to find her through an Internet search. After I’d finished my address list, though, I ran into a mutual friend from Kansas City who said that she might be living in New Orleans. That was all I needed finally to track her down. It was funny; after all these years, I still remembered that she was vain about her unusual middle name, and I found her by including the middle initial in my search terms. In these little ways, our childhood selves stay with us.
    I called her at work. She sounded astounded to hear from me—but happy.
    That night we talked for two hours. Hearing her voice brought backa lot of memories I’d forgotten; it reenergized some part of my brain that had been dormant.
    Before we hung up, I remembered to ask, “What’s your birthday?” This time, ten years won’t go by without contact.
    There wasn’t really a way for us to become close friends again; we live too far apart, and too much time has passed. But for years, I’d been bothered by a sense of this dangling relationship; it gave me enormous pleasure to talk to her again. I made a note to pester her to come to Kansas City for the holidays.
    BE GENEROUS.
    Generous acts strengthen the bonds of friendship, and what’s more, studies show that your happiness is often boosted more by providing support to other people than from receiving support yourself. I certainly get more satisfaction out of thinking about good deeds I’ve done for other people than I do from thinking about good deeds that others have done for me. It’s a Secret of Adulthood: Do good, feel good.
    For example, I felt great whenever I remembered how I’d helped a high school student. The organization Student Sponsor Partners had paired us as “sponsor” and “student” back when she was in ninth grade, and as a senior, she’d had trouble with her college applications. She’d been paralyzed by anxiety, and at first I’d had no idea how to help—but I asked around and managed to find