Category Archives: How To Be Happy

Putting Money in Perspective

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Many of the elders grew up in the Great Depression, and they knew what it was like to live on almost nothing. But there was something else they learned: you could be very happy with almost nothing if you had a loving family, a supportive neighborhood, and you weren’t competing with a lot of other people who had more than you did.

Maybe this is why so many of the life lessons of the elders had to do with not over-valuing material things. They don’t want us all to be starving artists, but they want you not to be ruled by possessions or an overwhelming urge to make money.

Ed, 76, a retired engineer, told me:

You don’t want your things to own you. The best example that I can give you is my mother and father. Their house was their idol. All the stuff in it was pristine and laid out and my mother saved every book she ever read, every lesson plan, everything she’d ever done, and the house was chock full of all kinds of stuff. Some really good stuff, but, after my father died we took a few things and all the rest went into the dumpster. All that worry, all that thought. And it’s hard to shake. You look at all the stuff and think ‘all this crap owns me, I’m a prisoner of it.’ There’s a lesson in this that I hoped I’ve learned while I’m still alive. I’m not owned by expensive things because they’re expensive.

Micah, 77, stressed not choosing work just for the paycheck:

That was always the way people that 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, and everything revolved around ‘what are you earning? what are you making?’ and stuff like that. So  the more money you made the more successful you were. And that became of more importance 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, 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. When I was a kid, down the street we had a shoemaker. He was a father with his kids and they all did the shoes, leather soles and stuff, and they were a pretty cool family. They loved working there. They were making shoes and fixing shoes. So there’s ways to be happy without having to be this big shot corporate guy.

Good Thought for the Season: Being Happy In Spite of Hard Times

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As we prepare for the holidays, many families are worried about their financial situations. Perhaps we can take some reassurance from the elders in the Legacy Project who experienced real hardship in the Great Depression.

Among adults, the Great Depression caused the disruption of professional and personal life and led to immense stress and uncertainty. For the Legacy Project elders – who were children or teenagers at the time – a somewhat different picture emerges. With few better off to whom they could compare themselves, and without high expectations of material excess, they simply learned to have a good time with what they had. This can be a powerful first lesson for how to be happy in spite of difficult financial times.

For example, two elders told us:

I grew up during the Depression, but I didn’t know I was poor because we had our own garden, our own car, our own chickens- everything that we had, we produced. I learned also to try to be happy – you went dancing, you went to baseball games, and most of it didn’t cost much. (Evelyn, 91)

I would say that our generation came from a more impoverished society, so our expectations weren’t that great like you guys are. You people grew up with computers and everything else, but we didn’t. So we didn’t expect it. We have it now, but if I lost it tomorrow morning it wouldn’t bother me, I’ve lived most of my life without it. (Phillip, 87)

I also think of Jennifer, 85 years old, with such good health that she traveled last year to Germany, Canada, and Alaska. She is an active volunteer and participates in continuing education programs. When approached by us, she quipped: “’Advice about life’ for younger generations in your letter surely opens the gates for us oldies!”

Her life’s lessons clearly represent the “happy in spite of” mentality:

In spite of growing up and attending college in the Depression years, the “good life” for me began in earliest childhood when I was raised in a loving and encouraging family and enriched by many inspiring role models. Then, fortunately, our marriage was a happy and rewarding one that enabled us to meet ups and downs together. For both of us, gratitude and giving thanks to our parents and others along the way was simply a way of life. I am not sure the importance of a simple “Thank you” or caring gesture is stressed enough today. We likely became more conscious of this as our family grew, and greatly appreciate seeing this attribute in our grandchildren and their young children.

It may sound like old-fashioned advice, but a focus on “gratitude and giving thanks” may help all of us this holiday! And if you have wisdom to share about the holidays, please post it here!

Mike’s List for Living: 10 Tips for a Happy Life

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We love the elders’ lists of their advice for living – and readers tell us they wind up on refrigerators across the country!

Mike, 72, summed up his principles for a happy and healthy life in 10 succinct points.

1. My father told me always to be honest. If you are honest you never have to remember what you said.

2. Another aphorism is to reach for the stars. You may not get there, but you might reach the moon.

3. You only have one chance to make a first impression. In the first conference meeting with my colleagues I made an astute observation which impressed everyone. After that, no matter how stupid my comments were, I was still viewed as knowledgeable. If it had been the other way, my opinions would be somewhat suspect for a long time.

4. Don’t let little things bother you. Most everything is a little thing.

5. Be cheerful. Nobody likes a sourpuss.  (Nor do they like saccharine sweetness.)

6. Remember Aristotle and search for the golden mean between extremes.

7. Vote. You are partially to blame if the wrong candidate gets elected.

8. Organize your life. It’s much easier to remember where you put things.

9.  Be spiritual. But don’t force your spirituality on others. There are many pathways to truth.

10. Re-evaluate your life periodically. But don’t obsess if it doesn’t turn out the way you expected. Surprises occur all too often.

If Not Now, When? Anita’s Lessons for Living

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Here’s a post for our summer intern, Jackie Santo. Thanks to Jackie for sharing what she learned from Anita, age 67.

 I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Anita about what she believes are the most important obligations that we, as people, owe ourselves and that we owe others throughout the course of our lives.

Anita maintains that we have an obligation to enjoy life, to make the most out of it, and to savor it. Below, Anita mentions the some of the most important pieces of insight that she wished she knew at age 20:

To be true to oneself. To try and know who you are. To appreciate who you are. And to try and live with integrity in all that you do and how you live

It’s important to know how to savor what you have, to not take things for granted and to help inculcate in yourself a sense of gratitude for what you have and not focus on the things that are absent from your life.

Live life to its fullest, you know? “If not now, when?” has become very much my motto. My companion and I have done a lot of travel, and every time I suggest a new place to visit he’s sort of like “are you kidding?”, and I always say “If not now, When?” so I am very fortunate to be in a position where at this point in my life I can do, sort of, whatever I want to do, and I’m doing it.

Aging is coupled with certain risks and resiliencies. Although many people encounter illness and mental deterioration as they get older, they also gather wisdom and life lessons. Anita asserts the familial, societal, and generational obligations that we owe each other to aid the ill and pass wisdom on to the young:

My father used to say that if you can do a good turn for someone else, why wouldn’t you do it? And I think that that’s been a perspective that I have had, as well about caring about other people. My work certainly has been infused with the notion that we have a social contract, that we have obligations not only to those who are closest to us but to the society to which we live.

I have, as someone once described, a heightened sense of justice and I feel very much that we have an obligation to speak out and to stand up and to struggle to make change. I think we have a generational obligation. I certainly recognize it in terms of being a parent to my child, but I certainly also felt it very much in terms of being a child to my parent, and I guess a lot of my work in the aging field has come from that perspective – that we have an obligation to those who came before us.

Excellent life wisdom we all can use!

Some Wise Advice – From Some Wise Elders!

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At the Legacy Project, we always welcome you to share your lessons for living (or lessons learned from an elder) on our “Share Your Lessons” page. You can also find lots more practical advice from America’s elders in our book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans.

Some wonderful elders from the Watermark Retirement Communities took us up on our offer, and provided some terrific lessons for living that all of us can use. Enjoy!

Edith:

“Throughout my life I have stayed active in sports and other physical activities. Now that I’m 96 years old, I make sure to walk as much as I can. It keeps the body moving, the blood flowing and I always feel better after a walk.”

Virgil:

“I keep my mind and body active by helping others in doing crafts such as bead stringing and jewelry making. I have always believed that when I die it won’t matter how much money I have or how large of a home. What will matter is how many people I have helped as I’ve traveled that road of life.”

Gilbert:

“The first election I voted in was the third re-election of Franklin D. Roosevelt vs. Wendell Wilke in 1940 and I’ve voted in every election since then. That makes 18 elections and 12 presidents. Voting is our right and our obligation according to the Consitution of the United States of America. We should avail ourselves of this right each voting period.”

Ed:

“A father is one who loves his children and their mother in all circumstances. He disciplines with love and not anger. He spends time with his children and shows them by example how to make good choices. He is always there to open his heart to their concerns and he is present in their lives until the end, when it can be put on his headstone with pride ‘He Was My Father.’”

Aaron and Muriel (married 70 years):

“Two words of advice for lasting love: ‘Yes, dear.’

 

The Most Important Lesson? Pearls of Wisdom to Ponder

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In the Legacy Project, we asked over 1200 Americans the question: “As you look back over your life, what are the most important lessons you have learned that you would like to pass on to younger people?”

Sometimes the respondents went on at great length about a lesson. But other times they came out with a straightforward principle for living. Some of these “pearls of elder wisdom” took my breath away and stayed with me. Here are a few of the “short but sweet” lessons we heard from the elders.

Remember that life is short.   When you’re tired sleep.  When you’re hungry eat.  Better yet — eat, drink and be merry.  And do good things for others along the way.  It makes everybody feel better.

Believe passionately in something. And I’m not sure that it matters too much what it is. But I think it’s very important to feel commitment, and to get energy and sustenance from that commitment. It could be religious, it might be environmental. It really could be anything. I think having passion and being willing to express it is important.

Learn to live in the moment. I certainly feel that in my own life I have been too future oriented, and it’s a natural inclination, of course you think about the future, and I’m not suggesting that that’s bad. But boy, is there a lot to be gained from just being able to be in the moment and be able to appreciate what’s going on around you right now this very second. And I’ve more recently gotten better at that and appreciate it. It brings peace. It helps you find a place. It’s calming in a world that is not very peaceful.

I think not putting off too long to do something, there certainly are things to do at certain times in your life that you can’t do at others.  There are no wheelchair ramps to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, so, if you want to get down there, you still have to go when you’ve got two little feet.

 The biggest lesson I have learned is that when I was younger I paid much too much attention to what everybody else thought.  That I didn’t always do what I thought was best.  I often did what everybody else thought I should be doing.  And every time I stood my ground and did what I thought I ought to be doing, I did better

 When there’s a ‘problem,’ it’s more helpful to assume it’s yours than someone else’s. Yours you can fix. Someone else’s you can’t.

What about your lessons? If you’re an elder and want to share your wisdom, or a young person who has learned something from an elder, please post it on our “Share Your Lessons” page!

Back from Italy! Which Reminds Me of Maria

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I’ve just come back from two weeks in Italy (yes, it’s a hard job, but someone has to do it). While there, I noticed something that one doesn’t often see in the United States.

 In all the little villages, there is the custom of the passeggiata. In the early evening, after the heat of the day, whole families take a gentle stroll, usually winding up in the central piazza of the town. What you see are entire families: small children on bicycles or kicking soccer balls, parents, and grandparents. As you watch the nonni (most often the nonna, or grandmother) keeping a watchful eye on the grandchildren, there’s a feeling of real integration into family life.

Spending time in Italy made me think of one of our Legacy Project elders, Maria. Like many Italians of her generation, Maria immigrated to this country, experiencing a mix of opportunity, hardship, and resilience. Maria has been married for 57 years. It would be hard to find a happier 83-year old, despite what many would consider a hard life.

Maria shared her lessons for living:

I didn’t have opportunity to go to college but we did have a school, and we had to go miles away from home even for that. And sure, it’s very important to get a good education. But now young people expect too much and too soon. We didn’t have what we have today; we didn’t have computers, we didn’t have TV. So today they’re lucky, they can learn a lot. But I feel that they don’t enjoy life, they look for something they cannot find. So they go with the bottle, they go with drugs and all that.

My life has been hard at times. I went through so much that I can’t even explain. The decision to come to this country was the best one at that time, because we had to go someplace, but we lost everything, it was very hard to leave your own country. I left my hometown at sixteen with my father and my brother. What I learned there was how to grow up fast and take care of my brother who was little, be a mother for him. I worked hard, I will suggest to everybody that if they want something, work hard and they’re going to get it.

I wasn’t spoiled, I was happy with nothing, and that made me work hard to get a little bit more. Take life the way it comes, easy. Try not to think about tomorrow too much, you know? Enjoy today because you don’t know when it’s tomorrow, if you’re going to be here tomorrow.

I enjoy every minute! I love my husband; every time he goes out, I never let him go without a kiss because you always wonder if something can happen. Never fall asleep without saying goodnight to the husband, never. And don’t be mad, that’s what I learned in my life, don’t be mad at other people. Enjoy things now, and stop worrying.

And the Winner is – Keep Playing!

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Sandra Wilson is the grand prize winning elder in the Legacy Project contest, an elder offering a piece of advice to the younger generation! She offered a valuable lesson on keeping a sense of play throughout your life.

Part of living is learning to accept and understand that things change. Someone once said that “If you do what you always did, then you will get what you always got.” So, if you want things to happen differently then it may take changing conceptions and life styles.

However, there are certain human needs that are constant. One of them is the concept of “play.” We learn to play without realizing that there may be difficulties that need to faced in times that lay ahead and it is going to be all lright. As children we can easily write down about 10 activities that we love to do and can often remember the last time that we participated. We enjoyed being with friends, roller skating, sledding, playing games with family, jumping rope, etc.  It is interesting that when adults are asked, they tend to have difficulty in listing 10 things that they love to do, much less when they last did the fun activity.

Play is an essential. Many times marriages end because couple tend to stop playing. Friendships end because folks get sidetracked with responsibilities and lose touch. Family life becomes mundane when the parents and children omit family chat around the dinner table that leads to listening and laughing. Their time to play as a family can define their love for one another and add to positive memories. Having fun through play remains with us from birth to death.

Stay tuned – we’re about to start announcing the winners of our contest for young people, who contributed a lesson they have learned from an elder.

Going, Going, But Not Yet Gone: The Greatest Generation

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I recently had a stunning realization: We’re about to lose one of the most precious resources in America. I’m not talking about oil, gas or rare metals. What we’re about to lose Is the living presence of the elders who make up the Greatest Generation.

This amazing group survived World War II and the Great Depression, but unfortunately even they can’t hold back the passage of time. And our world will change when they are no longer with us.

This inescapable reality hit me when I saw this chart.

A little over a decade ago, there were around six million living WW II veterans; by the end of this decade (with a few hardy exceptions) they will all be gone. Sooner than we think, this unique, inspiring generation will be no more.

Having spent the past six years gathering the practical advice for living of older people(who in my book 30 Lessons for Living I call “the wisest Americans”), I know that we’re not just losing individuals; we’re losing a way of living and of seeing the world.

When the Greatest Generation is gone, what will we miss? Here are just a few examples:

Their Unique Historical Experiences

Why is this generation so special? Part of it is what they’ve been through that most of my peers (the Boomers) haven’t. To a much greater degree than most Americans alive today, they had experiences that pushed them to their ultimate limits: a world at war, an economic downturn that makes ours look mild by comparison, immigration, upheaval, poverty, and deprivation. They also remember a time when communities were stable and closer, when air and water were cleaner, and when people didn’t lock their doors.

It’s these experiences that make their advice on how to overcome adversity so meaningful. Monty in this video from our Legacy Project is a great example.

Their Work Ethic

America’s elders grew up working. And working hard. And if there weren’t any good jobs available, they took whatever was available and worked hard at it.

Manny, 78, talks about how he got through school:

My first job? Delivery boy. Seventeen bucks a week, that was big money back then. Then I became a tool and die maker’s apprentice in a machine shop on Saturdays. Then I had a friend, her father was a shop steward in a commercial bakery, so I got a big increase. I joined the bakery as a truck driver. That was a dollar fifty an hour. I did that on the weekends, on Saturdays and summers. I had to. I had no money. I used to walk home because I couldn’t afford the subway.

Lifetimes of hard work have given the oldest Americans a unique sense of what makes employment happy or miserable. They are experts on how to be persistent when it seems like rewarding work can’t be found, and they know how to take a bad job and make the most of it.

They Know You Can Live Well With Less

Growing up in the Great Depression taught our elders the intense enjoyment that lies in small pleasures. Our needs and desires have become bloated to an extent that it takes an enormous amount to please contemporary Americans. But many of the oldest Americans grew up learning the lesson: Savor the small stuff.

Listen to Larry, age 89.

Let me tell you, in the 1930s we had the Depression. If you think you got a Depression today, it’s nothing like it was then. People didn’t even have enough to eat back then. A lot of the dads in the neighborhood weren’t working. And we shared simple things because people didn’t have money. We’d maybe get a nickel once in a while. We were half a block from a wonderful park, they had lots of activities there for kids, and wading pools, and we had a huge skating pond down there. And they’d have band concerts down there in the summer the whole neighborhood would go down there.There were popcorn wagons parked all around there. We kids would have a nickel and we’d sit there for several minutes trying to decide “What I should I have?” And these poor guys, they’re trying to wait on you, they’re patient waiting for you to decide: Do you want popcorn or do you want ice cream? You want a Holloway sucker or what do you want? And once in a while at the movies, they would have Saturday matinees for kids, for ten cents. And after the movie if we had another nickel we’d stop at a place that had ice cream and popcorn and we’d get that. And boy, we really had a Saturday afternoon.

 “And boy, we really had a Saturday afternoon.” After listening to Larry, I had difficulty getting that phrase out of my mind. I have watched kids come back from the mall or a movie at the mega-plex, revved up on candy at $10 a box. And I don’t think I ever heard one of them sigh contentedly: “Boy, we really had a Saturday afternoon.”

We should all become aware of just how precious a resource are the remaining members of the Greatest Generation – how rapidly they being depleted. The world will go on – our elders would be the first to assure us of that – but forgive me if I think it will be a less interesting without this remarkable cohort.

Any thoughts on how we can celebrate the Greatest Generation in their few remaining years?

Finding a Purpose: Can You Help One of Our Readers?

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Dear Legacy Project Blog Readers:

Cathy commented on this post (see below) asking for advice. In the past, you all have had some great advice for people like Cathy. Do you have any suggestions for her? If so, please comment!

I’ve been talking to friends of ours whose children are applying to college (thankfully, ours are done with that!). It got me to thinking about one powerful message of the elders to young people: Take time to find your life’s purpose.

Many of the Legacy Project elders told me something along the lines of: “Find what you love and do it!” What’s interesting is that people said this from all walks of life and all professions: Look for your purpose and your passion, or you miss out on a lot of what life has to offer.

Gary, 74, trained in engineering and spent his career as an executive in the railroad industry. Gary’s calm demeanor and self-effacing, folksy comments  reminded me a bit of Jimmy Stewart. He’s someone whose goal was to “do his best,” and he looks back on his life with dry humor.

His main advice (indeed, it was his primary life lesson) is to take the time to identify your life’s purpose.

One problem is you go through life and you don’t tend to think very much about these kinds of things. You go along, the dishes need to be done, the groceries need to be bought, you have to get off to work. So insight number one is that there’s more to life than getting the chores done every day. You should draw back from the hurly-burly of daily living and spend a little time thinking about: What’s my philosophy of  life?; Why am I here? What am I doing? Does it make any sense to be doing this? Those kinds of questions.

We need to take the time, perhaps even a little time every day, to reflect on our lives. I don’t know if we do as much as we should, so I think that might be rule number one. Even when you’re in high school. High school a good place to start, that’s where you begin discovering who you are. You should  start laying the groundwork  to develop a philosophy early in life. And throughout life, take a little time to determine what the purpose is to what you are doing. You can view your life as a kind of continuum, one you can direct more if you know the purpose behind it.

This can begin in school. When you’re in school you have a once in a lifetime chance  to learn something. And go for it. You can go for for it to shape your philosophy. If I were to go back and tell those kids in the class I would tell them to  get into whatever you’re doing now as intensely as you can. I think you need to spend some time reading history to this so you can  understand what life was like 2000 years ago versus today.

The end result of this reflection, Gary says, is to discover your underlying passion.

My first thought would be; ‘Is there something in life you have a passion for?’  And if it’s possible, can you start your career in whatever that field is? It could be butterfly collecting, anything. There are people that live very good lives in butterflies and collecting. It doesn’t matter what it is. so I think if you have a chance and you have a passion, follow it. A lot of people don’t have a passion, but if you do, see if you can somehow incorporate that into your career. And it could lead you interesting things and if that’s the case then take advantage of it.

It’s a balance. You need to be careful of what you do, to plan ahead, and so forth. But if you do too much of that you’re going to become stunted.You need some kind of middle ground. And it depends on the individual. If your passion in life is climbing mountains then go climb mountains because that is a talent that you have, a desire, and if you don’t do it, if you consciously give it up because something bad might happen, you’re going have a lot of regrets of missing your dream. But of course, check your gear before you go!