101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

to deepen your
RELATIONSHIP 
WITH ANYONE
01. Spend a Sunday with them. Not a Saturday night, when
everything is bustling and loud and socially seamless. Spend
a Sunday morning with them, tired and hung over and without
plans for the day. Eat breakfast together and don’t fix your
hair. Experience each other without needing to entertain.
02. Be comfortably silent. Go for a long drive and allow for bouts
of quietness as they naturally happen. Existing in someone’s
silence is existing in the most intimate part of their life.
03. Call them when you’re not okay. Take them up on the promise
to be there for you no matter what. Tell them the truth. Let
them comfort and console you. Tell them that you’re there for
them if they ever need it. Hold true to that promise.
04. Hold space for them. Listen to what they have to say wholly.
Without anticipating your response, without checking your
phone, without wandering eyes. Give them the entirety of
your energy. There is nothing more precious and sacred and
rare.
05. Talk about ideas. What you believe in. What you theorize
about existence or what fate could have in store for you in the
next five years. Just move beyond discussing people and
events and petty, daily grievances.
06. Read each other’s favorite books. Trade your personal copies
—the ones that are highlighted and marked up, where the
binding is almost completely breaking loose from having been
flipped through so many times. Share with them something
that opened your heart and fed your mind.

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07. Create something together. Start a little business or work on a
story or paint pictures for fun. Go on a service trip or build a
coffee table or redecorate your respective kitchens. Do
something where you team up for a greater cause.
08. Pay attention to the little things. Notice what they’re often
most bothered by, what their favorite flavor of ice cream is.
Know their Taco Bell order so you can surprise them with it.
Not everybody is naturally detail-oriented, so make it an
intention to be. People appreciate it more than you realize.
09. Attend your respective religious/spiritual services/practices
together. For the sake of understanding, go to their church
service one Sunday, or show them how you meditate, or ask
them what they believe and why. Let them be your guide
through something you otherwise wouldn’t know. There is
something absolutely extraordinary in learning about
someone else’s culture or dogma or lifestyle, in practicing
what it means to lovingly coexist.
10. Plan a short trip. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive.
Explore a neighboring city for a day or go for a hike. Plan in
advance so you have something to look forward to.
11. Integrate them in your other social circles. Merge your friends
together for a wine night, no matter how deeply you’re
convinced they’ll have nothing in common. There’s something
so intimate and special about gathering all the separate parts
of your life in one place.
12. Always show up. To their baby showers and art exposés and
graduations and moving days. Not because that’s what “good
friends/boyfriends/girlfriends do,” but because that’s what you
do when you care about someone else’s happiness as much
as you do your own.
13. Plan your heart-to-hearts. The older you get, the more
inconvenient it becomes to talk until 3 a.m. (There’s work to
do and groceries to buy and parents to call and you get the
picture.) So plan ahead if you must. Decide to have a

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sleepover and keep the next day open so you can stay up
and sleep in and relive your middle school glory days.
14. Talk about your families and what it was like growing up. It’s
one thing to meet your friend/boyfriend/girlfriend’s relatives,
but it’s quite another to hear the whole story, the reality, the
not-ready-for-company-imperfect-picture 
of 
what 
they
experienced. This isn’t a call to needlessly air the dirty
laundry, but rather understand that you won’t really know
somebody unless you understand the truth of their
foundation.
15. Be filterless. Don’t mince your words or tailor your opinions or
only present the side of you that you feel is “acceptable.” If
they don’t want the whole of you, the truth of who you are,
they’re not right for you anyway. And more importantly, people
can sense genuineness and will subconsciously take it as a
cue that they’re free to be who they really are as well.

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83
LET YOURSELF 
BE HAPPIER