What Makes A Good Life? Lessons From the Longest (75 yrs) Study on Happiness {Ted Talks}

[Quix]

This Thanksgiving
Perhaps pondering
These timeless truths
would be highly
profitable
and in order!

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I suppose it is an issue most would think something like: "OF COURSE! I knew that." Yet most don't seem to live like it--day to day--IN their relationships. imho, our relationships are the fabric; the weft and warp; with which we weave whatever's worthwhile of our lives--and from which we take into eternity all worth offering to God and Heaven.

Denial or pretense about such a priority is one of the most foolish stances I can think of. Yet, such denial is epidemic in our ATTACHMENT DISORDER ravished, saturated society, culture.

However, it IS POSSIBLE to learn to live differently.  . . . before it's too late.

Many decades long (75 years) longitudinal study of men . . .

What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness (75 years on-going) . . . 4th Director . . . Robert Waldinger


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI

Qx paraphrased bits:

--Harvard students and low socioeconomic kids . . . both ends of the spectrum . . .

--Some climbed the social ladder from the bottom to the top and some went the other direction.

--Every 2 years we call them up and ask if we can send them one more survey. Many of the inner city men ask why we still want to study them--"My life just isn't that interesting." None of the Harvard men ever ask that question.

--We interview them in their living rooms; we get medical records; we video tape them talking to their wives . . .

--What have we learned?

Good Relationships
Keep us Happier and Healthier.
Period
Social connections are really good for us.
Loneliness kills.

--People who are more isolated than they want to be from others--are less happier . . . their health declines earlier in life; their brain function deteriorates and they die younger.

2nd Lesson--it's not just the number of friends . . . it's the quality of those relationships.

3rd High conflict marriages are corrosive to health.

--to see if we could predict who would grow into a healthy octogenerian . . . it wasn't their cholesterol . . . Those most satisfied in their close relationships were happiest and healthiest.

--Physical pain is magnified by emotional pain.

--Good relationships affect our brains . . . people who are in relationships who really feel they can count on the other person--their memories do better longer.

--The good relationships don't have to be smooth all the time--but as long as they feel they could really depend on each other--their memories did well.

--Relationships are complicated and messy. And it's hard work.

--Retired people who were happiest were those who replaced workmates with new friends to play with.

--The people who fared the best were the people who leaned into relationships.

--What might leaning into relationships look like for you?

--Replacing screen time with people time . . . long walks, date nights, reaching out to the family member you haven's spoken to for years. Family feuds take a terrible toll on people who hold grudges.

--. . . There is only time for loving . . . .--Mark Twain.[/b]

[Quix]

= = = = = = =

What Really Matters At The End of Life?

BJ Miller


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apbSsILLh28

List of such vids:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=what+really+matters+at+the+end+of+life+tedx



He and friends climbed on the top of a commuter train . . . got zapped . . .

That night began my formal relationship with death. . . .

= = = = = = =

Worth the time, imho.

Well worth pondering.

And . . .

One of the things I'd most like to encourage folks to do daily and certainly this Thanksgiving/CHRISTmas season would be to

!!!!FORGIVE!!!!
!EVERYONE!

It is physiologically and spiritually extremely healthy to crucial to do.

And forgiveness is not about letting the other person off the hook. It is resigning as their policeman, judge, jury and executioner and leaving that to God. The evidence is that He's much more diligent about such things when we take our hands OFF the other person by laying aside our resentments, bitterness, unforgiveness, etc.

It is realizing that "But for the grace of God, there, go I."

It is choosing humility and letting God deal with the details.

It is recognizing that Pride produces nothing healthy and lots unhealthy and eternally destructive stuff.

It is doing unto others as we'd like done unto us . . . realizing that we've been stupid, clueless, harsh, silly, absurd, mean, thoughtless, selfish, arrogant, insecure, fearful, wild, crazy . . . at more than one or two times in our lives, too.

It is realizing that a healed relationship is worth far more than any amount of selfishness, pride, covetousness etc.

And, we cannot change the other person. But we can change how we relate to them and how we show our love to them--regardless.

There's a TED TALK  about drug addiction and Portugal's experience with decriminalizing all such drugs and putting the money into building relationships and providing productive options.

They recognized that CONNECTEDNESS--the opposite of ATTACHMENT DISORDER--is the crucial issue in drug abuse. Even rat experiments demonstrated that. And the years since Portugal changed their stance and practices have certainly demonstrated that.

Loving others regardless does not mean  condoning their self-destructive behaviors. And it does not mean one becomes a door mat to their evil crap.

It does mean we recognize they are created in God's image and have value in His eyes and ought to have value in ours. It recognizes that communicating caring about their unique identity and personality, person-hood--may be a lot more powerful than all the sermons you ever imagined ramming down their throats.

As Henry Wright asserts--all addictions are a desperate search for daddy's love that wasn't adequately there the first years of life.

http://www.beinhealth.com

 Sooooooooooooo . . . what do you have to lose--that's worth holding onto--by forgiving, laying aside the relational refuse, garbage, crap . . . and just loving those around you as well as you know how to and can at all genuinely manage with the least bit of earnest heart and effort?

Doing so could be the best present you ever gave yourself and those you love.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

 

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

The Rangler agrees, Quix.

[Quix]

Much appreciated.

Happy . . . connections.

The Rangler agrees, Quix.

[jmyrlefuller]

Well, ****, looks like I'm screwed then. The people I know in real life seem to think I'm a pariah.

[Quix]

Well, ****, looks like I'm screwed then. The people I know in real life seem to think I'm a pariah.

I lived a sad number of years with a very similar impression about myself--in spite of my best efforts to be kind and of service to others.

The following book can be of great help if you will digest it and apply the 10 solution suggestions in the back.

https://www.amazon.com/Attachments-Why-You-Love-Feel-ebook/dp/B006IED5KE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480300036&sr=1-1&keywords=attachment%3A+why+you+love%2C+feel+and+act+the+way+you+do
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Attachment: Why You Love Feel And Act The Way You Do
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If you wish to PM me your email addy, I'll be happy to gift you with a Kindle version of it.
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After my divorce, the almost suicide of my best friend, bankrupting myself and almost my parents, my pain was so extreme, even pastors and Christian psychologist friends had nothing more to say to me. And they couldn't handle well my pain. I would go window shopping to have shreds of human contact and conversation with store clerks.
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Eventually, after a few extremely painful and depressed years, I began to crawl out of it by being kind to strangers and others God brought into my life.
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I found there was really NOTHING more important in life than loving God and loving others regardless of the consequences.
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Now, I have a lot of local trustworthy friends and quite a number around the world on 2 other continents and around the USA.
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Yet, I now live alone in a single wide on the last acre of 175 acres my folks bought in 1952. They shut off the natural gas well to Dad's double wide and I don't have the $4,600 to put State gas in, with property taxes and Federal taxes looming.
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I love people locally in whatever tangible ways I can . . . and on the net . . . and go on. Mercifully, God is faithful and takes care of my needs.
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Sometimes, I feel like the little boy that "needs God with skin on" . . . but I manage OK.
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I think taking concrete steps to identify and deepen relationships that are worth it is crucial to do.
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Others cannot fill the God-shaped hole within us but we are designed to need both sorts of relationships.
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And, it really is more blessed to give, than receive--even if it is 'only' giving time; listening to lonely old folks; helping a desperately exhausted single mom, etc.
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Negativity is 'merely' a sign of serious levels and intensities of attachment disorder. But it is possible to walk beyond that in spite of the brain damage left in the brain areas that manage relationships and emotional expression. We can learn to stifle negative tones and words. They only bring a painful harvest, anyway.
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Anyway--my heart goes out to you and I'm happy to dialogue with you by email or hereon.
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May you find a workable way out of such isolation as soon as possible.
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Sincerely,
Qx