The Pursuit of Happiness
52 Friends Again
Dear friend,
The United States Declaration of Independence was first read to the public on July 8, 1776. Its most famous phrase, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” states three natural rights that all humans are given by their creator and which governments exist to protect.
Defining this pursuit of happiness has always interested me. In the twelfth grade, I wrote my philosophy thesis on the subject, comparing the ideas of different philosophers and various schools of thought. Thinkers who for the most part regarded happiness as secondary to morality when striving to live a good life.
In October 2022, I began a formal journey to meet 52 friends. Weekly, I connected with a new friend or met an old one and wrote about our conversation. I strived to learn from each person and understand the basis of successful relationships and friendships—these keys to the good life.
I’ve always hesitated to write frankly about that process, candidly fearing that it would prevent me from meeting my life partner—this idea that I was sad and worked toward happiness.
My plan in my early 20s was to find love by 25, wherever he was. Marry him at 27. Buy a house. Travel. Work my job in tech. Eventually, we’d have children. He and I would live privately and retire in Europe.
Throughout the early half of 2022, for a reason that I now cannot pinpoint, I found myself in an abusive romantic relationship with someone I thought I knew. I was 24 at the time. Maybe like all experiences or diagnoses or accidents that fail to align with our goals, we feel as if we are spectators to our own lives.
I travel with a leather journal, collecting quotes on its pages, and sometimes writing down flight or hotel information in case my phone dies. It was March 1, 2022—I pulled out the journal to put down, “Dear friend, I write this on a day of great pain. I came to visit a man I admired but he does not see the beauty in me that you do.”
That evening in March, I was assaulted by this person I cared about. The following weeks were filled with continuous arguments, insults, and eventually the end of the relationship.
I can admit now that I thought about it nearly every day for two years. At first, it kept me up at night and I often dissociated during the day. Later, I struggled with anger for I wished I was a fairy who could go back in time and pull myself out of a story that didn’t feel like my own—as I worked on 52 Friends, I felt like a knife had been permanently placed in my stomach, one I had to learn to pull out.
In 1976, an Italian professor named Cipolla published an essay arguing that the greatest existential threat to humans is stupidity. He made his point through a series of laws. The second one, for example, is that the probability that someone is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. They may be professors or presidents, he says, and that stupid people are the most dangerous kind.
Despite my encounter with stupidity, I believed that it was the exception to the rule. It also awoke me to necessary realities for I could not trust that everyone’s glasses were as rosy as mine.
On a night out with my friend Moshe and weeks before I started writing 52 Friends, I was seated beside a friend of a friend at a bar. An American-Bosnian man with whom I had the deepest of conversations.
“When do you know you want to start a relationship with someone?” I asked him.
“To build a relationship?” he replied. “Right away. The second date.”
His words, “to build a relationship” stuck with me as if they were a lesson that relationships are not something that we simply start like a machine.
By the end of that year, and after a series of mental breakdowns, I understood that I am mine. That what had happened had nothing to do with who I was. I was still the same person. I was still thoughtful, curious, and brave and though I had a lot to work through, I knew I would live a big life.
Waves of media followed my project and by the time I published my 51st and 52nd friends, my parents, 10,000 people a month were finding themselves on my blog. It’s not that number but the fact that thousands of people cared what I had to say and cared about understanding friendship as much as I did.
Near the end of the project, it also dawned on me that my work could not erase the past and though that was a silly realization, it was a painful one.
In the year following 52 Friends, I stepped away from sharing aspects of my life. Frankly, a part of me didn’t want to be associated with it anymore because I desired to enjoy the present instead of chasing friendships and I’m an introvert who that year lived as an extrovert.
I spend most of my efforts building my business called Simon & Gloria. A business I know I dared to pursue because of the work I did on 52 Friends. If my 21-year-old self could see me, I know she’d be proud because I’ve done everything on my terms, and this has made me successful.
If I can sound like a preacher for one moment, I’d like to say that any day we can choose to change our lives. We can meet someone new. We can start a new hobby. A new career. Build a relationship. We can do anything even if we’ve never done it before because it is our natural right to pursue happiness.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting across from one of my clients—a brilliant doctor at a Toronto hospital. We’d met at least a dozen times before, but that day she had the day off and bought me coffee and a croissant. We talked about business, medicine, and relationships. I walked away feeling refreshed and thankful that I had taken that time to sit with her.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca said that happiness is to enjoy the present. I knew that if I were to write 52 Friends again, there would have to be a commitment to documenting the moment instead of chasing it. The new year, brings a new chapter, however that may look like.
Love,
Miriam
“Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once.”
―Marcus Aurelius
Hey friend, thank you for reading! I’m glad you’re here. Please leave a comment if you have a moment, I’d love to know what you think of this piece or anything else :)
If you liked what you read, it would make my day if you shared it!
And if you’re not a subscriber but stumbled upon this page because someone shared it with you, please do subscribe.