什么是美好生活 (3)

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        The Good Life (3)
        Since 1938, we’ve tracked the lives of 2 groups of men. The first group started in the study when they were sophomores at Harvard College. They were from, what Tom Brokaw has called, the greatest generation. They all finished college during World War II. And then most went off to serve in the war. And the second group that we followed was a group of boys from the Boston’s poorest neighborhoods. Boys, who were chosen for this study specifically because they were from some of the most troubled and disadvantaged families in Boston of the 1930s. Most lived in tenements, many without hot and cold running water. When they entered the study, all of theseteenagers were interviewed, they were given medical exams. We went to their homes and we interviewed their parents. And then these teenagers grew up into adults who entered all walks of life. They became factory workers and lawyers and bricklayers and doctors, and one president of the United States. Some developed alcoholism. A few developed schizophrenia. Some climbed the social ladder from the bottom all the way to the very top. And some made that journey in the opposite direction. The founders of this study would never, in their wildest dreams, have imagined that I would be standing here today, 75 years later, telling you that the study still continues. Every 2 years, our patient and dedicated research staff calls up our men and asked them whether we could send them yet one more set of questions about their lives. Many of the intercity Boston men ask us, “Why do you keep wanting to study me? My life just isn’t that interesting”. The Harvard men never asked that question. (Laughter) To get the clearest picture of these lives, we don’t just send them questionnaires. We interviewed them in their living rooms. We get their medical records from their doctors. We draw their blood. We scanned their brains. We talk to their children. We videotaped them talking with their wives about their deepest concerns. And when about a decade ago we finally asked the wives if they would join us as members of this study, many of the women said, “you know,it’s about time”. (Laughter) So what have we learned? What are the lessons that come from that tens of thousands of pages of information that we’ve generated on these lives. Well the lessons aren’t about wealth or fame or working harder and harder. The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: good relationships keep us happier and healthier.Period! We’ve learned 3 big lessons about relationships. The first is that social connections arereally good for us and that loneliness kills. It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community are happier. They are physically healthier and they live longer than people who are less well connected. And the experience of loneliness turns out to be toxic. People, who are more isolated than they want to be from others, find that they’re less happy, their health declines earlier in mid-life, their brain functioning declines sooner, and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely. And the sad fact is, that at any given time, more than 1 in 5 Americans will report, that they are lonely. And we know that you can be lonely in a crowd, and you can be lonely in a marriage. BY --- Dr. Robert Waldinger


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