If I were in gourmet ice cream shop with a wonderful selection of exotic flavors in addition to my old favorites, I would be in a quandary trying to pick what flavor to order.

I can never make a fast selection so I have to look at the flavors ahead of time. If I didn’t get an early peek I would hold up the line while I tried to make up my mind.

Should I try one of the new exotic flavors? What about chocolate mint with those generous slices of smooth chocolate buried inside?

Or, I could stick to my old favorites

Decisions, decisions.

When my father took me for ice cream when I was a kid he always drove to the shop that specialized in the most flavors of ice cream.

But what I could never understand was after he checked out all the nifty flavors he always ordered the same thing: plain old vanilla. Maybe he too had a hard time making up his mind like I often did.

Picking an ice cream flavor is inconsequential. I just mention it as a small example of the overabundance of choices in life.

What kind of ice cream we eat has nothing to do with how happy we are. But there are plenty of decisions we make that do influence how happy we are.

Getting a bit of attention now is the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

It concludes that our social interactions play a major part in our happiness.

It also concludes that strong bonds with family, friends and community keeps us happier and helps us live longer.

The part about living longer is new to me. What it tells me is I better take good care of myself because I have always had incredibly strong family ties.

I told you before that when I was growing up I was extremely rich. Not rich with money, but rich with the love of family.

I was always fond of telling people I had five mothers — my own mother and her four sisters.

That meant plenty of love and attention for me. My aunts were always anxious to talk with me. From the time I was a kid they spent plenty of time talking with me and listening to what I had to say. They encouraged me in whatever I tried.

They were more than a listening ear. They were also my cheering section.

That, in turn, gave me plenty of confidence.

There were times when all that attention had a negative side for me. With all those eyes and ears watching me and listening to me, I couldn’t get away with anything.

My girlfriends would encourage me to go somewhere I wasn’t supposed to. They would say, ‘Your mother won’t know.’ Ha. My mother and her sisters knew everything.

If a boy walked me home from the library, before I even got home my mother knew all about it and then quizzed me about the boy.

But the important thing for me was that I knew my family cared about me.

And with 11 close cousins I had a big circle of cheerleaders.

When I got married and had my own children our circle of love expanded.

If I had to name the biggest influence in my life I would say it was having a close family and strong family bonds.

But before we have a loving family, we first have to find the right husband. I sure did.

Research shows that happily married people report higher level of happiness.

I often though the decision of who we marry is the most important one we make. But we don’t need research to tell us that we need to pick carefully.

The Harvard study also concluded that when it comes to friends, quality is more important then quantity. It other words, what means the most is not the number of friends you have; it’s the strength and depth of your friendships.

If you have one friend who is always there for you that’s more important than having many casual friends.

That should be good news for my friends who lament the fact that they no longer have many friends. As we get older some of our friends pass away, while others move to their place “back home” to be closer to family.

Right now I am mourning my close friend Jane. We always had a strong bond of friendship even though we didn’t see each that much.

For the past few weeks Jane and I have been planning to have another one of our special lunches with just the two of us. We could tell each other anything because that’s what close friends do.

Last week I left a message on her answering machine saying, “There is no such day on the calendar as ‘some day.’ ” I told Jane to set a date for lunch this week.

She never answered.

Jane quickly passed away without much warning. Her many friends will celebrate her life next week. I know she will be greatly missed.

If you have a dear friend you haven’t seen lately, perhaps it’s time to call that friend. As I just relearned, there is no such day as “some day” on the calendar.

Email Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net