Pushkin.

The Happiness Lab has just turned five years old.

It's hard to believe but our first series went out in the fall of 2019.

Since then,

we've made a couple hundred episodes, and thanks to all of you out there, we've racked up more than 130 million downloads. We don't have much data on how much happiness this has sparked,

but I think it's probably a ton. We certainly tackled a lot of topics and talked to some

amazing people.

But to celebrate these five years, I've picked five episodes from the archive that holds a special

place in my heart. My producer, Ryan Dilley, has been with me every step of this half-decade

journey. So, Ryan, tell me what the first show out of the archive is. So it's an episode called

A Mistakingly Seeking Solitude.

It's from our very first season.

So why did you have me grab this particular episode?

I picked this episode because it's one of my favorite episodes.

I mean, which is always hard for me to say.

I love all my episodes.

They're like children to me.

And so you have to love all of them. So mistakenly seeing solitude is an episode about what we get wrong when it comes to human connection.

And in particular, our assumption that solitude, not chatting with people, enjoying our space by ourselves, is maybe the right path to happiness when all of the research seems to suggest that we'd be much happier if we reached out to other people.

But this is genuinely one of my favorite.

When I get asked, you know, what are some of my favorite ones?

This one comes up at the top.

...