All of these studies, as well as our own Harvard Study, bear witness to the importance of human connections. They show that people who are more connected to family, to friends, and to community, are happier and physically healthier than people who are less well connected. People who are more isolated than they want to be find their health declining sooner than people who feel connected to others. Lonely people also live shorter lives. Sadly, this sense of disconnection from others is growing across the world. About one in four Americans report feeling lonely—more than sixty million people. In China, loneliness among older adults has markedly increased in recent years, and Great Britain has appointed a minister of loneliness to address what has become a major public health challenge.

Loneliness is more pervasive than ever before, and our ancient brains, designed to seek the safety of groups, experience those negative feelings as life-threatening, which leads to stress and sickness.

But are we missing something here? Is the separation we perceive between work and life helping or hindering us in our quest for the good life? What if the value of work—even work we dislike—lies not just in getting paid, but also in the moment-to-moment sensations of being alive in the workplace, and the feeling of vitality we get from being connected to others? What if even the most ordinary workday presents real opportunities for improving our lives and our sense of being connected to the broader world?

It’s no coincidence that many of the least satisfying jobs are also some of the loneliest. In the recent past, truck driving, night security, and certain kinds of overnight shift work have been some of the more isolating jobs. Now isolating jobs are also common in emergent, tech-driven industries. People who work for package- and food-delivery services, and other businesses in the gig economy for example, often have no coworkers at all. Online retailing is now a vast industry with millions of workers, but even packing and sorting in a fulfillment warehouse, where there are plenty of coworkers, can be lonely.

Henry’s realization about wanting to be around people also teaches us an important lesson—not about retirement, but about work itself: the people we work with matter. It’s important to look around our workplaces and appreciate those coworkers who add value to our lives. Since work is often so shrouded in financial concerns, in stress and worry, the relationships we develop there sometimes don’t get their due. We often don’t notice how significant our work relationships really are until they’re gone.