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, the longest in-depth longitudinal study of human life and happiness.
“Really, most of them boil down to this fear: Is it too late for me?”
The key finding from the eight-decade study (which is still going strong) is this: “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period,” they write.
2: Yesterday, we looked at the lives of Henry, one the original participants in the study, and his wife, Rosa.
“What was it about Henry and Rosa’s approach to life that allowed them to flourish in the face of difficulty?” the authors ask. “And what makes Henry and Rosa’s story, or any of the life stories in the Harvard Study, worth your time and attention?”
Relationships.
“It is the quality of your relationships that matters,” Bob and Marc write. “Simply put, living in the midst of warm relationships is protective of both mind and body.”
The really good news?
“It is never too late,” Bob and Marc write.
As in, “a definite NO,” they write.
Yes, “it’s true that our genes and our experiences shape the way we see the world, the way we interact with other people, and the way we respond to negative feelings.
“And it is certainly true that opportunities for economic advancement and basic human dignity are not equally available to all,” they observe, “and some of us are born into positions of significant disadvantage.
“But our ways of being in the world are not set in stone. It’s more like they are set in sand. Our childhoods are not our fate. Our natural disposition is not our fate. The neighborhood we grew up in is not our fate.
“The research shows this clearly. Nothing that has happened in your life precludes us from connecting with others, from thriving, or from being happy.”
Many people believe that once we become adults, we are essentially “set.” We stop evolving. We are who we are.
“But what we find by looking at the entirety of research into adult development is that this just isn’t true,” Bob and Marc observe. “Meaningful change is possible.”
So, what protects us from the inevitable difficulties that life sends our way? After all, “life is hard, and sometimes it comes at us in full attack mode.”
The answer? “Warm, connected relationships protect against the slings and arrows of life and of getting old,” they write.
This is the key lesson of the Harvard Study.
3: One of the questions the Harvard researchers asked was: Were there clues in midlife that could help predict who would grow into a happy, healthy eighty-year-old? And who would not?
“So we gathered together everything we knew about them at age 50 and found that it wasn’t their middle-aged cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,” Bob and Marc note.
“It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest (mentally and physically) at age 80.”
And the connection between good relationships and happiness didn’t stop there. Good relationships also predict physical and emotional health as well.
“As we investigated this connection further, the evidence continued to grow,” Bob and Marc observe. “Our most happily partnered men and women reported, in their 80s, that on the days when they had more physical pain, their mood stayed just as happy. But when people in unhappy relationships reported physical pain, their mood worsened, causing them additional emotional pain as well.
The Harvard Study is one of many that point to the powerful role of relationships.
“A few touchstone examples,” they note, “from some of the longitudinal studies mentioned above:
- With a cohort of 3,720 Black and White adults (aged 35–64), the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity Across the Life Span (HANDLS) study found that participants receiving more social support also reported less depression.
- In the Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study (CHASRS), a representative study of Chicago residents, participants who were in satisfying relationships reported higher levels of happiness.
- In the birth cohort study based in Dunedin, New Zealand, social connections in adolescence predicted well-being in adulthood better than academic achievement.”
The overall message of the Harvard Study is empowering: “The good life is not always just out of reach after all,” Bob and Marc conclude. “It is not waiting in the distant future after a dreamy career success. It’s not set to kick in after you acquire some massive amount of money. The good life is right in front of you, sometimes only an arm’s length away. And it starts now.”
More tomorrow.
______________________________
Reflection: Am I surprised by the findings of the Harvard study? How might I apply the key lesson around the importance of relationships?
Action: Discuss with a family member or friend.
What did you think of this post?
