1: “If you’ve ever seen a picture of your mother or father as a young adult, you know how startling it can be,” Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz write in The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
“They seem like people we might have met along the road rather than the parents who created us,” the authors observe. “They often appear less burdened, more … continue reading
1: The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest in-depth longitudinal study of human life ever done. The study has followed the lives of 724 individuals beginning when they were teenagers, and now spans over three generations and includes an additional 1,300 of their descendants.
“For eighty-four years (and counting), the Harvard Study has tracked the same individuals, asking thousands of questions and taking hundreds of measurements to find … continue reading
1: Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz get asked many questions.
Bob and Marc are the Director and Associate Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the world’s longest scientific study of happiness.
People often approach them with worried looks and ask: “If I’m shy and have trouble making friends, is the good life out of reach?”
Or, “If I had a bad childhood, am I just totally screwed?”… continue reading
1: Are we destined to be happy or unhappy? Loved or lonely? Does what happened to us in our childhood define us, forever?
“We get asked questions like this a lot,” Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz write in their book The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
Bob and Marc are the current Director and Associate Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development… continue reading
1: “Most of what we know about human life we know from asking people to remember the past,” Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz write in The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
The only problem with this approach?
People’s “memories are full of holes,” the authors write.” Just try to remember what you had for dinner last Tuesday, or who you spoke with on … continue reading
