What makes a good life?

Lessons from the longest study on happiness | Robert Waldinger

Opening questions:
 what keeps us healthy and happy as we go through life?
 If you were going to invest now in your future best self, where would you put your time and your
energy?

Life goals for millenials + percentages

 Over 80 percent said that a major life goal for them was to get rich and other 50 percent of those
same young adults said that another major life goal was to become famous.

Knowing about human life

 We know from asking people to remember the past and as we know hindsight is anything but
20-20 ,forget vast amounts of what happens to us in life and sometimes memory is creative

How to study people and why

 For 75 years they have tracked the lives of 724 men asking about their work,home lives ,health
,knowing their life stories, because they want to investigate the history of these people, but the
study is very long for generations

Length of study and number of subjects

 Since 1938 ,we have tracked their lives of 2 groups of men ,the 1 group started in the study
when they were at Harvard college and the 2 group that we have followed was a group of boys
from boston poorest neighborhoods
 75 years of study

Problems with these studies

 Social connections are really good for us and the loneliness kills
 The experience of loneliness turns out to be toxic
 In the Loneliness the life is short

Subjects remaining and their ages

 about 60 men of their original 724 men

Number of children
 2000 children of those men

Start time

Group Characteristics when study began

 First group everyone finished college during the second world war and then most went to war

Second group
 was a group of boys from boston poorest neighborhoods ,they were chosen because they came
from families with more problems and more disadvantaged in 1930

Subject characteristics after study began

 most lived overcrowded, without water.
 the young became adults and each one made his life

Joke about Harvard

  the staff asks questions to those who participated in the study and they say that their lives are
not interesting but when they ask harvard students they don't complain because they are more
stable

How were the subjects studied?

 they were interviewed in their living rooms
 they got their medical records
 blood is drawn and their brains are scanned
 they talk with their children
 record video conversations

What the lessons are not about

the lessons have nothing to do with fame, wealth, or work hard

Clearest message from the study

 Good relationships keep us happier and healthier period

First big lesson:

Evidence for this lesson
 Social connections are really good for us and the loneliness kills

Second big lesson:

Evidence for this lesson
 The number of friends you have and its not whether or not you are in committed relationship but
it’s the quality of your close relationships that matters

Third big lesson:

Evidence for this lesson
 good relationships not only protect the body but also the brain

What we’d really like is a quick fix. -- Why does he use this expression?
 use the expression because we are human beings and we would like everything to be easy and
quick to solve, something that improves our lives and is permanent

What the study has shown consistently

 In the study, the happiest 75-year-old people were the ones who replaced their friends, and
millennials believe that fame, wealth and achieving things were what they needed for a good life.

Having better relationships

 the study shows that people who leaned towards relationships with family, friends and
community, give a better life

Last statement in the talk

 Mark Twain quote:
“There isn’t time ,so brief is life,for brickerings,apologies,heartburnings,callings to account ,there is
only time for loving and but an instant so to speak,for that”