It Comes Down to Choices: Wanda's Advice

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Wanda, 85, worries that young people won’t be interested in her life lessons. I think she’s wrong about that, because 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.

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

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John, 70, lived much of his life looking toward the future, striving in his distinguished 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.

The Old Cliches about Living the Good Life Apply: Miguel's List

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Miguel, 76, tells us that tried and true wisdom pretty much gets it right.

Past generations had it about right.  Most of the old cliches about living the good life apply. 

One should eat healthfully, get a full night’s sleep, exercise regularly, set priorities, not sweat the small stuff, spend a lot of time with family.

Follow your heart, plan ahead, never look back with regret, give it your all, not take life too seriously, try everything — you only go around once.

Live beneath your means, make new friends, but cherish the old ones.

Admit mistakes, learn to listen, keep secrets, don’t gossip, never take action when you’re angry

Don’t expect life to be fair, never procrastinate, call your mother. 

Most important: (1) choose your parents with care – they will provide the good genes and set you on the right path; (2) pick the right spouse — everything else pales by comparison.  

 

Genevieve's Lesson: Learn from Your Elders – While They Are Still Here

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Genevieve, 77, advises young people to learn history (and ways of living better) from their older relatives. She prepared this letter for children everywhere:

Dear Children,

For you the world began only a few years ago. All of what happened before that is a jumble. The grandpa you never knew who died in The War – was it Vietnam or World War II? I know it doesn’t seem to matter. You look to the future. The past, whether of family, friends, country, or the world, doesn’t matter because you are planning to change everything for the better.

I choose to believe that you will change at least some of everything for the better. But, you need a solid foundation on which to stand first. The Greek scientist Archimedes knew this; he said he would move the world if he had both a lever and a place to stand.

Without a foundation in the past and present, you could shift ‘everything’ out of our grasp or even send it crashing backwards. There is a way you can make sense of past and present and avoid future problems.

Find time to ask Mother, Father, Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts and other family members about their lives before you were born. Get them to tell you stories of the funny, foolish things they did as well as the things in which they take pride. Try to learn about friends and relatives they remember that you will never know. Some of them will be thrilled you asked about their lives; you may have to coax others but it is worthwhile.

When relatives tell you these tales, pay attention and ask questions. You may find out why they moved to a particular place, took a certain job, what they thought would happen in the country at that time, and how events and people changed their lives. We all, even you, live in a moving world, not a static one. If you want to change the world, you must also know how the world changes you.

When you can, keep a diary whether on computer, on tape, or in a book. Include things that are happening in  your own life. Put in it lots of events and names of friends and family. You may not think so now, but someday after many years your mind will be so cluttered up that memories and names you think you’ll know forever will simply start to drop out and disappear.

When you are grown and have children, pass on to them, in turn, as many as you can of these stories heard and lives lived. You will be giving your children a great gift that they too will learn to appreciate as time moves on.

For some ideas about how to start the conversation, try these “six questions to ask your elders.”

"Children Who Break Your Heart": A Reader Asks for Your Advice

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Many people who have come to this page are looking for answers to the problem of family estrangement. I’m excited to be able to offer an brand new resource. For my book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, I interviewed hundreds of people in estrangements, including those who have successfully reconciled. The book is filled with compelling stories, concrete advice, and strategies and tips for healing family rifts. I hope you find it helpful!

In an earlier post, one of the Legacy Project elders shared her mixed feelings about having children. Loraine,89 , talked about accepting both the joy and the pain children can bring. She stated: “If you don’t have children now, when you have them you will have these moments.  When you look at them and your heart – it’s like your heart takes all the pain and all the love for them that you have.”

We just received a comment on that post from one of our readers, who would like your advice:

What about when your children are disappointments? I would like to hear how parents handle situations when their most loved children are cause for a broken heart? Comments please!

We asked some experts for their advice, which you can find here.

Please note that the comments thread on this post is now closed.

Lessons Learned: John's List for Living

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 We welcome contributions of life lessons to the Legacy Project site. This wonderful list of lessons learned was sent to us by John, age 76.

There are no definitive answers to any of life’s questions, but quality joy-in-life can be had in the pursuit of those answers.

Loyalty to one’s own personal beliefs and respect for others’ is the path to a serene life.

Family, country (maybe God if you are religious) need to be honored if one is to survive in an intolerant, unjust world.

Little things do matter and must be tended to so they don’t pile up to become complex things and more difficult to cope with.

Health and marriage must be treated in the same way…daily maintenance with occasional spoons full of sugar to make bad times go down.

You should listen more than speak, which is hard for us to do, so that takes practice.

You should find work that you will be content with because 40 years is a long time doing the same thing.

Heed the advice of your elders. They may not have all the answers, but they have had much more experience than you.

Experience can be a cruel teacher; learn from it.

Being cautiously pessimistic about life will make the sporadic good things that actually do happen seem even better.

You should not fret very long; all things pass. One way or another they will no longer be experienced.

Whether or not you believe in heaven and hell (religion) should not prevent you from being a nice person.

Injustice exists. Get used to it.

Love those Book Clubs! Some Points for Discussion

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One of the most fun things about publishing 30 Lessons for Living is occasionally attending meetings of book clubs that have read it. The book club movement is, in my opinion, among the hopeful signs in our culture. They show that people still care deeply about the written word, and clubs provide a supportive and friendly atmosphere that you find all too rarely these days.

I saw this first-hand in my recent visit to a book club at the invitation of Cindy Nicholson. This club is creatively named “Book Club,” and the members are pictured with me, above. In addition to discussing 30 Lessons for Living, I asked the club for their ideas on my next book, which is about elder wisdom for love, relationships, and marriage. they provided terrific ideas for what types of advice to ask about from long-married people. It was a lively and inspiring discussion!

All this got me to thinking about some questions that might help book clubs get the conversation rolling. Here are a few of my ideas. And book club members: If you have any more ideas, please comment!

1. Which of the 30 lessons resonated the most with you? Which lesson seemed to you the least important or relevant to your own experience? Why was this?

2. The elders I interviewed found the interviews interesting and enjoyable, but many of them also believed that younger people wouldn’t be interested in their advice for living. Do you think that there is an interest in elder wisdom? If not, is that a problem in our society?

3. One main point the elders make is that, from their perspective, life seems very short. Some psychologists say that this sense of a limited time horizon actually helps people make better decisions and to spend their time more wisely. Do you see benefits of this sense of life’s finitude? Or is it depressing?

4. The advice from the elders can sometimes seem out of step with today’s “conventional wisdom.” Which of their lessons offers the clearest alternative to “public opinion” on how to live your life?

5. Are there any of the lessons that you have used after reading the book in your own life? Or that you plan to use? What are these, and why?

6. Have you personally benefitted from elder wisdom in your own life (for example, advice from older relatives or friends)? How did it help you?

7. What do you think about the way older people are treated in contemporary society? What does the book imply for how our society could value older people?

8. The book is confined to older Americans. Do any group members have experiences with older people from different cultures? How might the findings in 30 Lessons for Living be different if the surveys were conducted in other nations?

These are just a start – Good luck with your discussions!

Jeremy's List for Living: Lessons for Work, Intimacy,and More

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Jeremy, 72, offered this profound and interesting list of his lessons for living. A compendium of elder wisdom worth pondering!

Here are some of the things I believe I have learned about life:

1.  The most important resource is time.  Not money or material things.  Because if you have time you can fix whatever is wrong.  If you don’t then all the good things in the world won’t matter.  So you need to take care of yourself and give yourself as much time as possible.

 

2.  Learn what you are good at (and what you are not good at) early enough in life that you can build on these points later.  Don’t kid yourself.  Most people will go through a mid-life crisis of one kind or another.  I certainly did.  When you are in a period of drift it is good to know the kind of solution you are looking for.

 

4.  Intimacy is much more important than most people think.  A lot of people think of themselves as mentally and/or physically tough.  Tough as nails—that is their self-image and the way they want others to think about them.  But to have a complete, satisfying and fulfilling life there must be a soft part somewhere, even if only one other person (or even a pet) can see it.

 

5.  What goes around comes around.  Once again this is hardly original with me.  But I have learned that life is full of surprises.  Someone or something that you do not see as very important at a particular time may become very important later.  Always act as if each person, each activity, each thing you come across is potentially important in the future.

 

6  .If you want to avoid getting stale, keep re-inventing yourself.  Don’t be afraid to try new things, even if you are a basically conservative person.  This is especially true for me now, approaching retirement, or at least semi-retirement.  I believe that when a person retires he (or she) should do something completely different from what he has done before.  That is so that it is understood as the beginning of something rather than the end.  Nothing could be more depressing than sitting around waiting for the end.

 

7.   Don’t expect everyone to love you.  Life is full of difficult choices which are inherently zero sum games.  Some of these you have to lose because it is more important for you that the other person wins.  But there are some where you really do have to win.  So don’t be afraid to step up and win.

 

8.  Maintain your ability to compete.  Everyone loses some battles.  But if you are so depressed that you are unable to compete you will enter an inexorable down-spiral where some kind of disaster will be waiting for you at the bottom.

 

9.  Know when to think ahead and when not to.  Part of our cultural programming is to think and plan ahead.  Am I saving enough money?  Am I doing the right things for my children?  But there are some, easily recognizeable situations where you really can’t predict the outcome.  In a case like that you must discipline yourself not to think too far ahead.  Just deal with what is immediately in front of you.  Believe me, the situation will change.

 

10.  The true measure of what someone brings to the table of life is what his or her descendants accomplish.  It is nice that such and such a person earned millions of dollars or accomplished some incredible physical or mental feat.  But the part of him or her that will go on afterward will be the children and grandchildren.  So set a standard of accomplishment and appropriate behavior that will hold up—that will provide for you a legacy that is a lot more important than just giving them some money.

Okay, I Admit It: I Like the Taco Bell Elders Ad – What Do You Think?

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I anticipated the now viral “Viva Young” Taco Bell ad with dread. As someone who studies and promotes elder wisdom, I have hated just about every ad I’ve seen that tries to portray “with-it oldsters” engaging in hijinks. But Taco Bell’s Super Bowl ad was a genuine – and pleasant – surprise. I’ve watched it many times now, and I like it. In fact, I like it a lot.

It somehow manages to convey freedom and an openness to experience, while using older actors who look, well, the way a lot of older people look. It didn’t make them, or their situations on their wild night out, cute sterotypes. As the director of the ad, Tom Kuatz, put it: “I didn’t treat them differently than I would 20-year-olds. That’s part of the concept. Kissing was kissing on the mouth, dancing was dancing, doing the robot was doing the robot like a 20-year-old would do.”

I’ve spent the last five years talking to the oldest Americans about, among other things, how to make the most of the later years of life. And what they told me is a lot like what this commercial manages to convey in a very short time. For successful aging, they endorse principles like this:

            Become more of a free spirit. Over and over as they reflected on their lives, I heard versions of “I’ve given up worrying” and “Why do people worry so much about everything?” Indeed, from the vantage point of late life, many people see fruitless rumination about the future as a young person’s game. As one 83-year old put it: “Don’t believe that worrying will solve or help anything.  It won’t.  So stop it.”

 Focus on the short term rather than the long term. In the ad, the actors are clearly living in the moment. And that’s what most of the elders we interviewed suggest: focus more on the short term. As a 102-year old told me: “The most important thing is one day at a time. You can plan ahead but it doesn’t always work out.”

Savor the moment. When people seek happiness, they often think about “big-ticket” items: buying a house, finding a partner, having a child, getting a new job, making more money. The elders tell us that a positive attitude depends on thinking small: seeking unexpected momentary pleasures that are experienced intensely. Not every older person wants a wild night of clubbing as shown in the commercial, but they do love to immerse themselves in the present moment.

Take risks. We think of older people as more conservative, but in terms of living life to the fullest in old age, the opposite is the case. They tell their peers (and those of us who will, if all goes well, be old someday) to let go in the last third of life. A 94-year old laughed: “My advice about growing old? I’d tell people to find the magic!” Many elders described life past 65 as a “quest” and “an adventure.” Their advice to us? Endorse embracing excitement, creativity, and risk-taking well into our 70s, 80s, and beyond.

And Taco Bell (whether you like their food or not) managed to convey a bit of that spirit during the Super Bowl.

[Thanks to Robert Powell, blogger on retirement for the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch site, where this post originally appeared.)

One Thing to Look for in a Mate: Advice from Long-Married Elders

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I’ve spent time over the past year talking with young people about their hopes for marriage. And the question that comes up more than any other is: “How do I know if the person is the right one for me?” Is there a way to tell if someone is likely to be a compatible long-term mate, or a difficult and contentious partner?

Sounds complicated, right? But in our interviews with hundreds of long-married couples about what works and what doesn’t for a long and satisfying relationship, one simple and straightforward answer emerged again and again. It turns out that our elders believe there’s something close to a “magic bullet” when it comes to deciding in a relationship: “Should I stay or should I go?” And it all comes down to similarity.

But first, let’s take a look at conventional wisdom. Popular opinion tells us that opposites attract. Look at Romeo and Juliet coming from two perpetually feuding families. Or Tony and Maria in “West Side Story,” one Polish-American, the other Puerto Rican, and as different as they are they can’t resist one another. We believe that such different types are magnetically drawn together.

But do they live happily ever after? Certainly not in those two examples, nor in many others. Even The Little Mermaid — the original Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, not the treacly Disney movie — winds up rejected by the handsome prince and dies. In literature and legend, at least, it’s tough to bring two different worlds together.

I’ve asked over 500 people married 40, 50 and more years what is most important for a long and happy marriage. To my surprise, their advice was nearly unanimous: Opposites may attract, but they don’t usually make for great and lasting marriages. Based on their long experiences both in and out of romantic relationships, the fundamental lesson is this: You are much more likely to have a satisfying marriage for a lifetime when you and your mate are fundamentally similar. And if you’re very different, the elders warn although that marriage can work, is likely to be much more difficult.

I can hear some of you saying: But it would be boring if two mates were exactly alike in interests and personality! Although it may sound paradoxical, long-married elders agree that some differences can spice up a relationship. But not all aspects are equally important. There are many ways partners can be similar, but the elders say that one dimension is absolutely necessary: Similarity in core values.

Now I have talked to many people entering into relationships over the years and I have heard all kinds of reasons for falling in love. Things like physical attractiveness, having a good sense of humor, making good money, being a nice person and physical attractiveness (okay, I said it already, but I hear it a lot). Searching my memory, I failed to come up with a single example of someone saying: “Oh, I’ve just met the most wonderful person. The best thing is — we share the same core values!”

The elders’ advice, however, is that alignment of values are precisely what we should look for if we want a long, happy marriage.

Take Emma, who at 87 has been married for 58 years. As she puts it, “It’s quite an achievement.”

“I didn’t know it when I got married, but in retrospect I know it’s important to have the same basic values. In other words, if you’re a free spender, marry somebody who understands that. If you’re frugal, you need to marry somebody who understands that, because money is one of the stumbling blocks in marriages. Fortunately we had the same values on most things.Because of this, we really didn’t argue. And we didn’t agonize over things. We came to our decisions by just realizing that we had usually the same goals.”

 The key phrases here are “we really didn’t argue,” and “we didn’t agonize over things.”

Arguments emerge over apparently trivial issues, the elders tell us, because they really reflect underlying values. Whether the wife purchases an expensive camera or the husband a new golf club is not the core issue in what can become a monumental fight, but rather the deeper attitude toward what money means, how it should be spent and whether the financial interests of the couple are more important than indulging an individual whim. Similarity in core values serves as a form of inoculation against fighting and arguing.

Keith, 78, told me:

“In my first marriage… we had whole different backgrounds, different perspectives. We came to the point where we asked: ‘What’s the point of this?’ I understood this in my second marriage, and it’s been wonderful for 24 years. It’s based this time on compatibility and understanding one another’s values. We’ve never had a fight. In other words, there’s no meanness, there’s no power struggles, no ‘my way is the right way,’ those kinds of things.”

Of course, to ensure shared values, there is a catch: Namely, you need to explore one another’s values while you are in the process of committing to a relationship. Ask the question: Do we believe the same things in life are important? The long-married elders recommend that you discuss this issue and to make sure core values are as similar as possible. A number of the elders offered this tip: Early in the relationship, each of you writes down your basic values or principles in areas like money, children, work, and sex — then share these statements with one another. Because value differences are likely to be at the heart many relationship problems, it’s much better to know them in advance of committing.

As a result of this kind of “values check,” people like April, 74, and her husband went into marriage knowing they were aligned on important issues:

We both had strong commitments in feeling that we owed something back…to the community, not only of resources but of time. We both loved to travel, and we had a sense of adventure. We liked the same people and I think that’s important. Very seldom did we disagree about friends. And parenting, of course. We had very similar values in terms of our kids and what we wanted for them.

The wisdom of the elders is very consistent with research findings over the past several decades. Social scientists who study marriage look for two things over the long term: marital stability (how long the marriage lasts) and marital quality (the sense of satisfaction and well-being partners experience).

The research findings are quite clear: marriages that are homogamous in terms of economic background, religion and closeness in age are the most stable and tend to be happier. Sharing core values has also been found to promote marital stability and happiness. So the elders are in the scientific mainstream when they urge you to seek a partner who is similar to you in important ways. But what should we do with this information?

In this advice, we come up against a dilemma. On the one hand, the elders agree that someone who is generally similar in upbringing, general orientation and especially values is the single most important thing in choosing a mate. On the other hand, we live in a pluralistic society that increasingly values diversity, breaking down old barriers and understanding and appreciation of differences. Is there a conflict here?

The message to take away from this lesson allows for both perspectives. People happily married for decades (and social scientists) don’t tell you unconditionally to avoid marrying someone who is different from you, but with whom you are deeply in love. They just want you to recognize that if you marry someone with values very different from yours, you are much more likely to face complex challenges in married life. According to the elders, in the face of objective differences (such as culture or economic background), shared values and outlook on life go a long way to promote both the quality and stability of a marriage.

(Interested in sharing your advice for marriage? Contribute your marriage lessons at the Marriage Advice Project.)