Category Archives: Avoiding Regrets

Realistic New Year’s Resolutions – from the Wisest (and Oldest) Americans

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Are you tired of New Year’s resolutions lists by now? I am pretty much satiated with blogs and media telling me how to lose weight, start exercising, get rich, etc., in 2018. And I recall reading that only a tiny fraction of New Year’s resolutions are ever acted upon. Is there a better source of wisdom for the new year? I think there is.

I reviewed the data we gathered from more than 1,200 elders in the Legacy Project, who shared their lessons for living for future generations. Based on the surveys and interviews, here are  resolutions in five areas of life that are worth a try. These suggestions from the oldest Americans may serve you better than the typical ones we make (and break) each year.

Work. “Ask yourself: Are you glad to get up in the morning?” When it comes to your job, the elders propose a diagnostic test: How do you feel when you get up on a workday morning? You may be ambivalent about your job and have your ups and downs. But when it comes down to it, how do you feel when you are having that first cup of coffee?

Are you at least in a tolerable mood, looking forward to something about work? If instead you feel dread and foot-dragging, the elders say it may be time for a change. As Albert, 80, put it: “It’s a long day if you don’t like what you’re doing. You better get another job because there’s no harsher penalty than to wake up and go to work at a job you don’t like.”

Marriage. “Let your partner have his or her say.” From marriages lasting 40, 50, 60 or more years, the elders find that deliberately showing your partner that you are listening is a major way to defuse conflict. Natalie, 89, told me: “I learned that when you’re communicating, to really listen to what the other person is saying. When I got married, instead of listening to my husband, I would be thinking what to say in reply, to contradict or to reinforce what I was trying to say. That is not the best thing when you communicate. You’ve really got to listen and let them have their say. When I was in my twenties, I had all the answers. Now that I’m in my eighties, I’m not so sure my answers are always right.”

April, 70, offered a specific technique: “If we were in some sort of struggle over something we would stop and say: ‘Which one of us is this more important to?’ And when we could figure that out, the other one found it so much easier to let go.”

Child-rearing. “Abandon perfection.” The elders we surveyed raised over 3,000 children, and from that experience they had a clear lesson: Resist the temptation to seek perfection, both in your kids and in your parenting. We logically recognize the futility of creating perfect children, but emotionally we often hold ourselves up to a perfect standard. The elders, in contrast, are the first to tell you: No one has perfect children. They admit that each of their kids experienced difficulty, a period of unhappiness, a wrong turn. They suggest we lighten up regarding our children and assume that failure is inevitable at times. Gertrude, 76, said: “We were going to have perfect children, and we were going to be perfect parents. It doesn’t work that way.”

Aging. “Accept it.” Unless you’ve been living in a bomb shelter over the past decade, you’ve seen the barrage of advertising for “anti-aging medicine.” There’s a whole subculture of practitioners promising to defeat the aging process. To this the elders say: Forget about it! Instead, they encourage you to accept the aging process and to adapt activities to your changing physical abilities and circumstances. The very active Clayton, 81, noted: “You kind of grow into it. You realize that if you can’t be running this fast, well, you just go slower, but you keep on running. Do what you’re able to do and accept that there might be some limitations.” And don’t waste a penny on “anti-aging” products.

Regrets. “Go easy on yourself.” I recently was asked to do a post for CNN on the topic of how to avoid having regrets later in life. The elders do in fact have some good suggestions on that topic. But there’s another point they make: The goal of living a regret-free life is unrealistic. Their recommendation: Go easy on yourself regarding the mistakes and bad choices you have made. Alice, 85, pointed out: “What I have learned from the mistakes that I’ve made is that you can’t change what’s happened in the past. You have to accept yourself, warts and all. Once a decision is made, you don’t get anywhere by looking back and second-guessing it. As somebody taught me years ago: “if you’ve bought a pair of shoes, don’t look at the shoes in the next store window!”

And a last resolution: don’t forget to seek advice from elders you know. They have practical tips for living a more fulfilling life. Happy New Year!

Don’t Put It Off and Be Sorry When You’re Older

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Gail, 91, has one piece of advice for avoiding regrets: Do it now. What young people will regret, she suggests, is not pursuing opportunities while they can.

Well, I kind of regret some decisions because I wanted to have a certain skill and I didn’t pursue it and I really regret it and that’s what I’d like to say to young people: If they’ve got an idea, for example, if they want to be a veterinarian, they should do it and not put it off and be sorry when they’re older that they didn’t.

That’s what happened to me, and that’s something that they can learn from older people: Don’t wait because you only have one life. If you mess it up when you’re young, then it might be too late when you get older or maybe you just don’t feel like it or you might have some kind of health problems or something and you just can’t do it. But I think young people are more energetic and they should pursue what they’re going to do when they’re young, not wait, that’s what I learned.

You Need to Do What You Love

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Many students are involved in summer internships right now, so it’s worth taking a moment to learn this lesson from our elders: focus on work for its intrinsic value more than for external rewards.

Marty, 71, had a very satisfying work life as an engineer and entrepreneur. But he exhorts younger people to think about success not in terms of money, and gives you some important questions to ask yourself about your career.

Earning money seemed to be how they measured a success when we were young. Some people went to college but most people went to work, they got a job and went to work so everything revolved around: What are you earning?  What are you making? And so the more money you made the more successful you were.

And that became more important than: What should I do with my life? What do you want to develop? What do you want to learn?’  But by learning and experiencing that part of your life, you’re going to be doing something you like doing,  that you want to do, and money follows. Money follows. That’s the way it works.

And if money doesn’t follow, you’re doing something you like anyway. So it was like when I was a kid, down the street we had a shoemaker, a father with his kids and they did the shoes, leather soles and stuff. They were a pretty cool family. They loved working there and they loved making shoes and fixing shoes. So there’s ways to be happy without having to be this big-shot corporate guy.

Jeremiah’s Lesson for Living: Wisdom Gathered by our Summer Interns!

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Our summer interns are back! Two great undergraduates spent part of the summer interviewing older Welcome-Interns-Signpeople about their advice for living. Here’s the post from Margo Rieman, a junior attending Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, majoring in Management and Psychology and minoring in French. While conducting her interview, Margo learned the importance of thinking wisely, working hard and saving your money. Here’s her report:

When one is young, it can be difficult to make smart decisions and spend your time wisely because understanding and effectively anticipating the long-term costs and benefits associated with a given choice can be challenging. Many people rely on past experiences and invested costs when making life decisions. However, ignoring other factors – particularly the future – may result in a short-sighted perspective.

Jeremiah, a former World War II veteran and now a 99-year old New Yorker, had some wisdom to offer on this topic. Jeremiah made it clear that there are certain things in life that should be prioritized when making major life decisions, despite your immediate wants and needs. Jeremiah recants his experiences below and emphasizes the importance of thinking wisely, going to college, and saving your money.

I was a veteran in World War II. I could have gone to college on the G.I.’s Bill of Rights but I wanted to live, more or less. If you grew up in the 30’s you didn’t have the same opportunities as you do today because of the lack of money. So once you’re in service, and you accumulate some money, after you get discharged you have this money supposedly – what they call, “on the books” – coming to you, so you want to go out and buy a car, which is a mistake. I should have used it to go to college. I wasn’t a gambler or anything like that so I kind of accumulated quite a bit of money.

That perspective, the war, changed me, you know. Plus I had a high school education, and I wasn’t real smart, in fact I was below level but I could have went to college. I didn’t want to, I wanted to have a good time. Well, now I’m pushing 100. I never saved any of my money, and I’m broke. When you see on the television that you need hundreds of thousands of dollars for retirement, they’re not far off.

Jeremiah concluded:

Work hard, save your money. You’re always going to have stressful experiences, but if you know what you’re doing, you can do it. Be conservative. Be very dedicated to what you’re doing. You gotta have fun but it should be 20 percent of your efforts. The thing is if you do it when you’re young, you’ll be better off when you get older.

Jeremiah’s advice forewarned me of the importance of saving while I’m young and to work hard in all my endeavors. He gave me confidence that I will succeed if I am knowledgeable and experienced in the work I am pursuing.

 

 

Advice From Wanda, 84: “It All Boils Down To Choices”

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Wanda worries that young people won’t be interested in her life lessons. I think she’s wrong about that, choicesbecause her hard-won lessons for living are ones we all can use.

I write poetry for children and for the old. The media generation escapes me. I really would like to know what is going on, but it all seems as alien as the planet Mars. What could I tell them out of my experience that would have any meaning for them? In my 84-year-old case, I feel that I have lost their attention. If I could re-capture it for fifteen minutes, I would say this:

It all boils down to choices. Make a bad one in a few seconds, and live with the consequences for the rest of your life. When you are young, lots of the choices have to do with sex and relationships. Use your head, and go carefully.

If you have a chance, get as much education as you can, because it gives you options you would not have otherwise. Find out what your strong suite is, and follow up on it. Don’t be afraid to seek advice . If words are your thing, and you think you might make a writer, don’t wait until you are 70 years old as I did.

Those who make a plan for their lives have an advantage over those who just float merrily along. This, in fact, is what I did, and I had a wonderful ride – but if someone had asked me “What do you want to do with your life? You’re only going to get one.” I might have focused more, and perhaps made a difference . But no one ever did. Too late for regrets!

One must make a living, and it is not easy these days. But don’t insist on being a millionaire. Focus on making enough money to bring up your children, educate them, save and invest anything extra for your old age.

If you have children, spend time with them, doing “stuff” like going on beach picnics, going to the zoo , reading poetry and stories at bed time, making cookies, at Christmas, singing with them, using art materials( Kids clean up well.) These are things they will remember in later life.

I think I’ll stop here. If I get preachy, no young person is going to listen.

How Young People Can Avoid Making Big Mistakes: Six Things You Should Know

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avoiding regretsI recently saw a re-run of the popular sit-com 30 Rock. In that episode, television CEO Jack has a hallucinatory encounter with his future self, from whom he receives life advice that helps him avoid major mistakes. Most of us would also like to know which choices and decisions we make as young people will benefit us later on – or come back to haunt us. Although there’s no way to step into our own futures, we can in fact get a very good sense of what mistakes younger folks should avoid: We can ask our “future selves” – our elders. Continue reading →

Learning to Live in the Moment: Why Not Do It Now?

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John MacGregor, 70, lived much of his life looking toward the future, striving in his distinguished academic career. His lesson is to learn to live more in the moment. He learned this in his sixties, but suggests younger people learn it sooner.

I don’t say people shouldn’t think about the future. But when you really give yourself up to the present, when you’re in the room and you look around you, and there are other people in the room and you’re able to really zero in on those other people, and being able to really sense what they’re feeling and tap in to their own presence, then it’s not aimless at all. You feel very connected, very grounded, and it’s energizing. So you receive energy by making those connections in the present moment.

And it’s not just with people. The same thing is true with a walk in the woods. If you can really open yourself up to hearing the sounds and smelling the smells, and feeling the touches, the wind, and all those things, then you increasingly feel like an integral part of that system, so that you too have feelings, and they begin to connect with what’s going on around you. You may feel small, but it’s not a very frightening smallness. Instead it’s a feeling of being a part of a larger something. There’s a connectedness that is very, very reassuring. So that’s what I mean by being present and being connected to now.

I think you inevitably look at the future, but to the extent that you can still appreciate what is going on today and at the moment, then exactly what that future is going to be continues to be an open question, and that openness I think has great value. You’re allowing in some sense your intuition to play a role, and not being afraid that somehow that intuition is going to compete with and overwhelm your reason. That the two can work together, and support one another, influence one another.

It’s not easy, particularly for those of us who spend a lot of time in academic institutions or other jobs where the rational part of you is applauded. Living in the present and enjoying life isn’t something that you complete, or accomplish; it’s something that you strive toward, something that you work on, something that you engage with. It’s a process, at least in my experience.

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It’s Never Too Late – Vera’s Outlook on Life

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We are delighted to publish a post from our summer intern, Cornell University student Austin Lee. Austin learned valuable lessons from Vera, whom he interviewed for the Legacy Project.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Vera and learned from her about the unpredictable nature of life; nothing is set in stone and there are endless opportunities for new adventures.

Continue reading →

Advice to Graduates – From a Pretty Cool 91-Year Old

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Here in my college town, the campus is bustling with end-of-semester activities and preparations for graduation. Who better to give advice to graduates than the oldest and wisest Americans?

Verna, 91, wrote this “list for living” for young people starting out in life. It’s a good one to pass on to the graduates this month!

1. So many things in the world have changed since the time of my grandparents and parents and the earlier times of my own life, and I know that there will be lots of changes in your lifetime too.

2. I hope you will always take education seriously (I was a teacher) and become well-educated to be ready for whatever kind of work or service you will be doing.

3. I hope that you will respect your body- take good care of it and try to have good health.

4. I hope that the governments of the world will do a better job of getting along with each other so that you can experience peace among nations.

5. I hope you will be a positive thinker, not negative or cynical.

6. Look for the good in people and things, and fill your life with love, kindness, and thoughtfulness for others.

7. I would hope that you will know the peace and joy and courage that come from following a life of love and service- the peace that passes all understanding.

8. Your real success in life lies is the kind of person you become, not with how famous or wealthy you are, so my most sincere wish is for you to live the wholesome life that will lead you to make good choices along the way, to Reach That Star that you are striving to reach.

YOU CAN DO IT!

More Advice about Overcoming Worry: From our Readers!

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In a recent blog on the Huffington Post, I wrote about the most surprising regret we heard from the older people in the Legacy Project. Over and over, the elders told us: “I wish I hadn’t worried so much,” and “Worry wastes your life.”

Over a hundred readers provided their thoughts about worry and how they have overcome the worrying habit. Here are some of my favorite pieces of advice from folks all around the country. Enjoy their wisdom!

I recently have found myself coming to a similar though slightly different conclusion as that involving less worrying over the span of one’s lifetime. My own determination is to try and go through life with as few regrets as possible because what has happened is already done and over with and more often that not, these things are irreversible and and can not be redone or their outcomes changed. Just try not to make the same mistakes for things that did not quite work out like you wanted them to or which you might have done differently in hindsight. What’s done is done, for good or for bad. Try to focus your life on the here and now and on the – hopefully – brighter future that looms large up ahead, by the grace of God.

 In one week in 2009, one daughter graduated law school with honors and the other graduated from a demanding high school. They are nearly seven years apart in age because my husband, in spite of being successful, was always worried about the money for their education and other needs. At the second one’s graduation, we were holding hands, and as he squeezed mine, he said, “We should have had another one. I shouldn’t have worried so much about the money.” This was a real shock to me because he has trouble admitting when he’s mistaken about something, so this was a huge thing. Very lovable!

 At a very low period in my life, I was told by a priest, “Worry is interest on problems you do not have yet.”….It has stayed with me all these years

 I am not a worrier. Sure, I’ve had some things that have bothered me, but most of the time it doesn’t cross my mind. When worry does hit me, I jump on it to get rid of it. Not only is it a waste of time, but it poisons relationships, ruins your enjoyment of activities, and affects health.

 I found one really interesting thing about not being a worrier. Other people, suspected me of being uncaring. They worried about their teens. I didn’t. I did everything I could to make sure they were safe and following the rules, and then I enjoyed them. There were other moms who questioned if I loved them because, to them, love and worry were inseparable. Not only is that false, not worrying leads to better relationships with your kids, as far as I can tell.

I have a child with a terminal illness, although he has been defying the odds. On top of that I have developed some sort of auto immune disorder that robs me of my hearing, as the “breadwinner” in our family you can imagine the stress this has caused. There was a low point where I thought I simply couldn’t take it anymore. You know what got me there? Worrying. Im still working, he’s still alive, we are still living a decent life. I wish you the best in your struggle with this awful habit. 

I called a friend(actually my AA sponsor) years ago to tell her about some awful, terrible life-altering problem. She asked if I remembered a call I had made several months before with another awful, terrible life-altering problem. I did not. Her response. “Well, there you go” and she hung up. Best lesson ever. If I start fretting over anything I think: Is this something that will matter in 6 months? Almost always it is a no. One instance it was raining horribly, roof was leaking and water was coming close to back kitchen door – then lightning struck my computer and I sat down to cry. Remembered that phone call, changed attitude, and it turned out fine.

I’m 65. This article is 100% right! Human mistakes of the past can be valuable in teaching us life lessons so there’s no good reason to regret them. But time wasted cannot be reclaimed and serves no useful purpose whatsoever. It’s best to “fill the unforgiving moment with 60 seconds worth of distance run”. As I look back, there are parts of my life when I sure wish I’d done that instead of worrying about something I couldn’t do anything about. Good news is that I’m not worrying now! I think I just ran my course with it.

At 35, someone told me this quote. I’m 68 now and it has never left me: “Worry is like sitting in a rocking chair. It doesn’t accomplish a damned thing. It just gives you something to do!”

We welcome more of your thoughts and strategies about worry!