Pull up a chair

Happiness is at the dinner table and it always has been, this week in happiness

Apr 29, 2025

Welcome to this week in happiness, want to hear a fun fact? no? Im going to tell you anyway. The origin of the word companion is from eating bread together - com meaning together and panis meaning food/bread. In an informal survey of my friends, when I asked what peak life experiences were for them, one thing kept coming up. Breaking bread with family and friends, ideally on a beach or in a field. This is how we have made bonds for hundreds of years and it seems with the loneliness crisis in full swing it might to us some good to go back to our roots and eat some bread with friends.

But don't listen to me, listen to the science:

Eating together as a family leads to healthier eating
Teenagers who eat as a family are emotionally stronger, and they actually like it, too This is increasingly important as teen happiness has been on the decline before, during, and after Covid
Eating together builds social competence and confidence, which may still be atrophied

Arthur Brooks, one of the foremost voices on happiness, agrees: Invite your friends over for dinner. Okay, that sounds nice, but how do you do it? Reject perfection and embrace beautiful imperfection. Cook for other people and they'll be happy, don't worry about that ingredient you forgot, or work the next day, and just enjoy the company you have while you have it.

The book Frugal Hedonism is a bible of useful tips when it comes to maximizing your life, not in a bro-optimizing way, but in a real, good-living way. Would you rather eat alone at a fancy restaurant or eat cheap Chinese food and drink second to last shelf wine with all the people you love?

With the fate of the universe at stake, the Martians are pointing the death ray at the planet, I want General Gao’s (chicken).

Abundance without company is abundance without abundance. It all tastes of ashes if not taken together.

That's all for this week, I hope you can break some bread and make some new friends.

A poem about this:

Company

Breaking bread

Sharing wine

Giving together

Feeding the soul.

Recommendations:

Good music, good vibes: the homies mixing R&B and burning grilled cheese