I’m always looking for fresh ways to reconnect with my memories and my past, and I found a surprising way to remember my grandparents’ house.

As we looked at children playing in the street, the taxi driver and I saw two different scenes.

The distinctive click of my shoes against marble connected me to two memories from different points in my life. Our five senses help to connect us to the present moment and our present experience, and they also connect us to our past.

Ordinary belongings become precious as they persist. They make us feel rooted in our own existence, with the comforting feeling that “Some things will never change.” Things will change, of course—but using my parents’ brown bowl makes me feel like they won’t.

Just because something isn’t often used doesn’t mean that it’s useless. My 3D “Magic Eye” postcards are fun to look at, and they also tie me to my own past.

We talk about why it’s helpful to remember that the things that go wrong often make the best memories—for example, I passed out on live TV! Plus a hack about holding hands, and we ask the know-yourself-better question, “Are you in an age of expansion, or an age of concentration?”

In honor of our sixth anniversary—an unusual year, due to the pandemic—we look back at the previous year and highlight our favorite try-this-at-homes, happiness hacks, and favorite moments.

We share listeners’ suggestions about creative ways to create physical representations of our one-word themes for 2021, discuss an extremely easy, fun hack for bringing happy memories to life, and we talk about the happiness stumbling block of paying for college with journalist Ron Lieber.

We discuss why spending one hour managing our email inbox can give us a happiness boost, highlight a listener hack about clearing out the photos on our phones, and interview award-winning journalist Gary Taubes about his new book “The Case for Keto.”

We suggest revisiting a book that you still remember from high school or college (and reveal the books that we plan to revisit), discuss a funny food-related Know-Yourself-Better question, and explain why, during the winter months, it’s a good idea to run errands in the morning; plus, a listener asks for suggestions about how to give long-distance love and support to a parent with cancer.