The Good Life (5)
Why is this so hard to get?
For example, with respectful wealth,
we know that once your basic material
needs are met, wealth doesn’t do
anything.
If you go from making 75,000 dollars
a year to 75 million, we know that
your health and your happiness
will change very little, if at all.
When it comes to fame, the constant
media intrusion and a lack of privacy
make most famous people significantly
less healthy. It certainly doesn’t
keep them happier.
And as for working
harder and harder, there is that
truism that nobody on their death bed
ever wished that they had spent more
time in their office. (Laughter)
Why is that so hard to get and so easy
to ignore? Well, we’re human.
What we really like is a quick fix
- something we can get that will keep
our lives good and keep them that way.
Relationships are messy and they are
complicated and they are hard work
of tending to family and friends,
that’s not sexy or glamorous.
It’s also
-long. It never ends. The people in
our 75-year study with the happiest
retirement were the people who had
actively worked to replace workmates
with new playmates.
Just like the in that recent survey,
many of our men they were starting
out as young adults, really believed
that fame and wealth and high
achievements were what they
needed to go after to have a good
life.
But over
and over, over these 75 years, our
study has shown that the people who
fared the best are people who
leaned into relationships, with
family, with friends, with community.
So what about you?Let’s say you
are 25, or you are 40 or you are 60.
What might leaning into
relationships even look like? Well,
the possibilities are practically
endless.
It might be something as simple as
replacing screen-time with
people-time, or lightening up a stale
relationship by doing something new
together, long walks or date nights,
or reaching out to that family
member who you haven’t spoken to in
years.
Because those all
too-common family feuds take a
terrible toll on the people who hold
the grudges.
I’d like to close with another
quote from Mark Twain. More than
a century ago, he was looking back
on his life, and he wrote this,”
there isn’t a time, so brief his
life, for bickerings, apologies,
heart-burnings, callings to account.
There is only time for loving. ”
But in instant, so to speak, for
that, the good life is built with
good relationships. And that’s an
idea worth spreading. Thank you!
BY --- Dr. Robert Waldinger
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