Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
If you could go back in time and spend just a few minutes with your younger self, let's say your 15-year-old, your 20, your 30-year-old self, I bet you would know exactly what you'd say, because you have important advice to give.
You have some valuable lessons that you would share.
You would say, look, Here's exactly what you should do right now.
But hear me out, hear me out.
Wouldn't it be amazing if, every once in a while, you could time travel forward to the future and get advice from the older, wiser version of you?
Wouldn't you love to find out what changes you could make in your life right now, while you still have the chance?
Psst, I got a little secret for you.
You can.
Because today...
You and I are hopping in a time machine and going to the future to hear the life lessons that every single 90-year-old wishes they knew when they were your age.
That's what we're doing.
See, I have this amazing guest here in our Boston studios and he is the perfect person to share these life lessons with you.
If you've ever wondered, what is the secret to living a happy life?
What are the biggest regrets that people have at the end of their life.
And at the end, what really matters and what doesn't?
Well, you're about to find out.
And once you hear these life lessons from 80, 90 and 100-year-olds, you will never be the same again.
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
I am so excited that you're here.
It's always an honor to be together and to get to spend time with you.
If you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this episode with you.
I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family.
And I can't wait for you to meet today's guest, Dr Carl Pillemer, and learn the life lessons from people in their 80s, 90s and even in their 100s.
These are life lessons you didn't know you needed to hear.
Professor Pillemer is one of the world's leading researchers on aging and family relationships.
He's the Hazel E Reed, Professor of Human Development at Cornell University and Professor of Gerontology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.
He's also the founder of the Cornell Legacy Project.
It's a massive, decade-long study capturing those hard-won life lessons that you're about to learn today.
His best-selling books 30 Lessons for Living and 30 Lessons for Loving are blueprints for how to live a life with more meaning, fewer regrets, stronger relationships and the happiness you deserve.
He's also the author of Fault Lines, Fractured Families, and How to Mend Them.
Professor Pillimer has published over 150 peer-reviewed studies.
His work has been cited more than 26000 times And I am so personally excited to have this conversation because Professor Pillemer's work has impacted me and changed my life.
So much so that I cite his work in my first book, The Five Second Rule.
I've discussed it and taught it on stages around the world.
I reference it every single chance that I get.
Can you tell I'm so excited that he has taken the time to come here to our studios in downtown Boston.
So please help me welcome Dr. Carl Pillemer. to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
It's such a pleasure to be here, Mel.
I just can't wait for our discussion.
I have been waiting nine years to meet you in person, so I'm thrilled that you're here.
And here's where I want to start.
Could you speak directly to the person who's with us right now and share with them what could change about their life or the life of somebody that they care about, who they share this episode with, if they take everything that you're about to share with us and teach to us today and they apply it to their own life?
I want to share with you a lesson that many people learn too late.
One of the things older people have told me over and over is that life is incredibly short.
It passes by faster than you think it will.
There's a corollary to that, which is even more important.
And that's that happiness and fulfillment and purpose are not a destination that you will arrive at when conditions are somehow perfect.
Instead, happiness and fulfillment and purpose are the product of choices you make amidst the kind of circumstances in which you find yourself.
So it's a question of discerning what you can control and what you can't.
And what would you do if that was the wisdom you were going to base your life on?
Well, there's some things you really would do.
One of those is you would stop waiting for things like to travel or express love or find a more meaningful job.
You would make more conscious choices to be happy and to optimize your current situation.
You would focus on what's working rather than what's not.
You would savor small things throughout the course of the day.
And the elders told me all kinds of things that colored bird on the lawn, a phone call from a friend, the silly headaches of the dog.
You would treat moments and conversations and days with people you love as precious, rather than routine that you're just walking through.
Those are all part of what you can do if you embrace this elder wisdom about life being extremely short and that life can't be deferred.
And so that's I think that's really the essence of it.
These are sailors on the sea of time.
We've gotten to the end of this journey.
And one of the things they really know about is how to use this extremely limited lifetime that we have.
You've spent over 20 years at Cornell researching the biggest life lessons ever, the biggest regrets, the tactical advice that people in their 80s or 90s, even 100 and beyond, have.
You call it the legacy project.
Could you tell the person that is listening right now a little bit about the legacy project and what it's about?
Sure.
I was, I'd been a gerontologist for around 25 years.
I was in my early 50s.
And I had a powerful revelation that all I was studying was the problems of older people and older people as problems.
So I really had the idea, what do older people know that younger people don't?
And could I find that information and distill it in a usable form?
The one thing people don't realize and one thing that we've lost in our age-segregated society which is one of the most age-segregated now that's ever existed is that It's only been in about the last 150 years or so that people have gone to anyone other than the oldest person they knew for advice about life.
And we know from anthropological studies that older people were absolutely critical to human survival.
If you were in your 50s and everybody else was dying in their 20s and 30s and you knew what to do in a drought or what to do in a famine or where better land was.
People have found that older individuals were key to human survival.
We're at the risk of losing what is honestly an extremely natural human process, which is not asking older people for their stories or their anecdotes, but asking them for their practical advice for living.
If I can tell one story, I can say that there was a moment in which this revelation occurred.
I was starting to think that I was on the wrong track, because also we scientists get funding for solving human problems.
So you don't get so much money for trying to figure out why people are happy.
So I had that problem focus.
And I was doing research in a nursing home and the nurses knew I liked interesting older people and they introduced me to somebody who I called June Driscoll in the book.
And I went in, and it was like a typical nursing homeroom.
This was a very frail woman.
She couldn't get out of bed.
I imagine only had a few more months to live.
And I asked her how she was doing.
And in this strong voice, she said, just great.
I've had my bath.
I'm watching my programs.
It's a nice day outside.
And I was so surprised that I asked her, how could this be?
And she said, look, I grew up in terrible poverty.
I didn't have three square meals a day.
Now I'm being taken care of.
I have a place to live.
I have people who are caring for me.
Why would I be unhappy?
And that's when she said the thing that got me to write the book.
First of all, she said, young man, and in my mid-50s, that was nice.
But she said young man, you will realize that when you get to be my age that happiness is a choice and not a condition.
And that you learn to be happy in spite of things.
So I thought that, hmm.
I mean, it just sent me on this quest.
I'm sure you've had this every once in a while.
Something happens when you realize you're about to go on a journey that, for me, led to talking to these hundreds of people over many years, but where I just had to understand how can there be this paradox of happiness and aging where many older people, despite all the problems they have, have solved some of life's individual problems and are very happy.
How could we find that out and not waste that resource?
You know, I'm actually reading from your blockbuster bestselling book, 30 Lessons for Living.
This is page 232.
What's different about aging is that you don't have 50 more years when you're 80.
And if you really take that into consideration, there's something about limited time that focuses the aperture that you have, the lens that you have on life, about what matters.
Because if you really let's say that you're listening right now and you're in your teens, or 20s, or 30s, or 40s or heck, like me in my 50s
If you knew you only had one year or a week to live, notice how quickly you would only focus on the things that actually were important.
And so much of the crap that occupies your mind and your energy would just drift to the side, because you would suddenly know you have limited time.
So you focus on what matters.
And what I love about your work is the practical advice that you're about to hear and the specific things to really think about and focus on and change now come from a group of thousands of people who had that exact experience.
I have limited time.
So, by God, I'm going to wake up and spend that time on the things that actually matter, because I'm learning from the things that I regret that I didn't do earlier.
And I think that's the opportunity of this conversation.
What is the biggest takeaway from your research about how to live a happy, successful and healthy life?
There are some runners up.
Okay.
So, like a runner up, is that, even though a lot of these people grew up in the Great Depression, they think you should find work you love and not work just for money.
They have many other kinds of specific advice that we can come to.
But I would sum up and this is one piece where I see a real interaction with let them theory as well
If I were to sum up, maybe that core piece of advice, or really one of the big ones is the secret to a fulfilling life is to be able to distinguish and act on the difference between what you can control and what you can't.
So It's a difference between controlling your own actions, while acknowledging that you can't always control outcomes.
So what you can do is you can make a decision to value people and experiences over things.
But what you can do is is very carefully devote time and attention to personal relationships.
What you can do is make a daily decision to put mindless worry aside.
And, by the way, about worry.
I know that we'll come back to it, but imagine 2000 grandparents yelling at you.
Stop worrying so much.
You're going to regret wasting the time on it.
You would act as much as you can with honesty and integrity and because you know you're going to regret it later on.
You would stop worrying so much about things that you can't control.
You can't control exactly how your children turn out.
You can't control exactly how your older parents treat you.
You can't control how long you're going to live, no matter how much you believe in body hacking.
You have to focus on these things, aspects of your life that are controllable, and understand what the difference is and really take action on those things.
So I think it's this difference.
People get paralyzed by this kind of a despair about things that are going on, be it the political situation or something else.
The elders want you to believe that these things that you do in life to become happy and fulfilled and purposeful are the result much more of choices you can make than they are of some abstract force governing outcomes.
One of the ways that you can look at it, if I can use a little more social science terminology, is that there's something called and it's another big one optimization with compensation.
Optimization with compensation?
Optimization with compensation.
Like I'm getting paid for something?
Well, almost.
But as you grow older, people who age successfully learn to optimize what they have left and compensate for what they may have lost.
So, rather than being upset as one of my interviewees, I can't climb this mountain anymore, but I can still go hiking.
I'm going to optimize what I have left.
Instead of reflecting and ruminating about all the losses, they argue that you take action on what you can control.
You know, one of the biggest takeaways from the Legacy Project research because I've been a fan of your work for almost 10 years is this sense that I wish I didn't waste so much of my life worrying about things that never happened or worrying about what people thought.
Are there a couple key things that you should focus on?
You know when you talk about living intentionally and what's in your control.
What are like, the top two things to really focus on from the study that are within your control?
Can we touch on worry?
Of course.
Because I asked these very old people what their major regrets in life were.
Well, I actually asked it differently.
I asked them, what can a young person do to avoid getting to your age and and having regrets.
So how can they avoid it?
First of all, almost everybody said if you get to 90 or 100 with no regrets, you haven't lived a very interesting life and it means you haven't taken any risks.
So we can come back to that, but that's not an aspiration to completely avoid regrets.
But in general, I asked them about this and I was ready to hear people talk about big-ticket items like a shady business deal or an affair.
I was not ready to hear, and it was so surprising, I wish I hadn't worried so much.
And people gave many examples.
Here are just a couple I can think of.
One woman said there were going to be layoffs in my company and we were going to learn in three months.
I could do nothing about it.
There was nothing I could do.
I worried constantly.
And she paused and looked a little wistful and said, I wish I had those three months back.
Somebody else said, I wasn't able to get pregnant.
And I just worried and worried and ruined my life about it.
And then I got pregnant.
People use the same phrase.
I wish I had that portion of my life back.
So when you get into mindless ruminating worry, here's one action step.
Know for a fact that when you reach the end of your life and you look back on it, you will say a lot of the things I worried about didn't happen.
Things happened I didn't even think to worry about.
And I wish I had that time back. that I had spent mindlessly worrying and ruminating.
So one technique I use is I imagine this auditorium full of old people because it was a universal part of elder wisdom yelling at me you know, stop worrying about X Now.
I'm such a worrier that I could actually have a calendar scheduling in worries.
You know, daughter one daughter, two grandchildren job, climate change.
I mean, so that this for me was immensely helpful.
The second thing that they argue and I think it's very actionable is they really believe in planning.
So they aren't saying don't not plan, don't live through rose-colored glasses, but they really urge for whatever.
It is that you're worried about conscious planning.
So that's the sense of what, take advantage of what you can control rather than what you can't.
I think they would also argue because this particular insight, even though they didn't know it, is so consistent with principles of cognitive behavioral therapy that if you are an incessant worrier, there are therapies that can help you.
And taking that time to work through the elimination of these negative, ruminating thoughts.
Putting in the effort really can pay off for an entire lifetime.
Well, if I take everything that you just said from the, I wish I didn't waste time periods of my life worrying about things that either didn't happen, or things that happened and they weren't so bad, or that happened and they were bad, and I survived anyway.
I wish I could get that time back.
And if we also take the advice of you should just plan because it's something in your control.
And then I take the example from one person in your study who remembers a three-month period where they knew layoffs were coming.
They felt like a sitting duck and worried about it, which In the studies they're now reflecting.
I wish I could get those three months back.
And how many of us can look backward and go wow, I really allowed six months in that relationship to just go right down the toilet because I was worrying.
I allowed three months of my life, a year of my life.
The advice is in there.
Because if you take the example of you think layoffs are coming, well, that's not in your control.
But what is?
You can plan.
So if you think it's happening, start looking for another job.
Start brushing up on other skills.
Start asking yourself, am I really happy here anyway?
And if you lean into that tactical piece of advice, you've now learned two things.
When you're worrying, you can take control.
And by taking control, the worrying disappears and you don't poison the time.
So the biggest regret, I wish I wouldn't have wasted so much of my time worrying about things.
What are some of the other big regrets that people near the end of their life?
If I were talking to your listeners, I would say one thing that you are likely to regret is not investing enough time and energy in people you love or like and making sure that they are aware of it.
So I would say that that's one key thing is when I analyze all the regrets that people have.
They are much more about people than they are about career, and they are much more about not engaging with attending to, as I said at the beginning, being present and intentional about relationships.
So, for example, not investing time in relationships.
In the studies I did, we learned that what children really want is your time.
They really aren't interested in anything else you can give them.
They want time spent with you, as does your partner.
One example of this that I talk about in the books is something I called the middle-age blur, but maybe be better called the activity blur.
People in their 30s to 50s, often people would say, I almost don't remember that time.
You know it was so filled with work and building a career and getting my education done and housing, and then have kids thrown in.
It passed by like a nanosecond.
It occurred in this blur.
And people very often in that blur lose track of relationships.
And the odd thing is, or the ironic thing is, is that older people would tell me, either directly or indirectly, that they spent these enormous amounts of time pursuing happiness in other ways.
And happiness was essentially already there if they had invested in these, you know, had acted in compassionate ways, in rewarding relationships.
So I would say the one thing you're going to believe as an older person there's no question that when you come to the end of your life, you are going to value people and experiences over things.
I'll say again, and this is one of the things that's been quoted very heavily from the book.
If you want data.
So out of the 1200 people for 30 Lessons for Living who we surveyed, not one person and it's going to sound a little absurd, but not one person.
Not a single person said I wish I'd spent more time accumulating more things.
But not one person said, I really should have just tried to make more money.
Really, that's the thing I just did wrong.
If only I'd invested a lot more time trying to make more money so I could buy more stock.
Now, that does sound absurd when worded that way, but I deal with a lot of young people in my job and that is a very present motivation for a lot of people.
No older person towards the end of their life is going to endorse that.
So that you can think about that, that you are going to value experiences and people way more.
And let me say one other thing about that.
The older Americans don't want you to be starving artists.
I mean, a lot of them, I'm sorry, apologies to starving artists.
That's fine.
But they want to make sure that you prioritize that what you do is enjoyable and fulfilling.
One of my favorite interviewees, who was a very successful entrepreneur, summed it up.
He said, I loved what I did and I made money doing it.
So it was in that order.
So I do think this notion that I would say a principal regret is failing to be present, failing to be intentional and failing to be active towards people who we love and like in our life and being distracted about so many other things.
And I can guarantee almost everybody that's what you're going to think about at the end of life.
You know, when I think about your work, the regrets that really stuck with me were, first of all, wasting too much time worrying about things in the future that never ended up happening.
The second one was not spending time with the people that mattered while they were still here.
And the third one that had a really big impact on me personally was was worrying so much about what other people thought that I didn't let myself be or do the things I actually wanted to do.
Can you talk a little bit about that one?
If I could sum up their advice, I think they would be fairly radical looking back over their own lives, and would endorse a statement like don't do anything because you think it would impress somebody else.
That is, don't make a purchase, don't make a choice.
As much as you can, Don't do something because you think it would increase other people's opinions of you.
Now, it's not bad to want people to like you.
It's not bad sometimes to try to fulfill other people's expectations.
But as a major motivation to give something concrete.
If you're buying a car, extract from your mind, what other people will think of that car?
You know.
So I think that the insight you've said is really really important, key to them, that you waste an extraordinary amount of time.
And money.
And money, focusing on what other people think.
Now, let me qualify that.
Okay.
There are some times where they really want you to consult other people and really want you to be concerned about what other people think.
One of their strongest pieces of advice about finding a mate is really listen if nobody else likes your prospective partner.
That is, if none of your... Wait, hold on.
So like if none of your friends Like really listen to your friends and your family if they don't like the person you're with?
They said, over and over, they said, if only I'd listened.
If it's just one person, but if everybody you know is saying this guy is not right for you and they're repeatedly saying it and your impulse is to say you're all wrong.
You don't understand him.
Over and over, that was a major life regret because very often...
Your friends and family have your interests at heart.
So they do want you to listen to other people around those kinds of decisions.
But that's very different from doing something just because you want them to think better of you.
They want you to listen to others.
Now, not, of course, if it's because of a prejudice, if it's because of some kind of stereotyping.
But if everybody thinks this is not the person for you, there's a chance they could be right.
Well, typically when that happens, it's because your family and friends notice that you're not yourself.
Exactly.
That they're not bringing out the best in you.
Like I notice as a parent, it's very, very clear when my kids have been in a relationship with somebody where they completely change and they don't seem like themselves, versus when they're with somebody where I see the best of them being brought to the surface.
Dr. Pillimer, I am so excited you're here.
There is so much that we're going to dig into.
Here's what I want to do.
I want to take a quick pause because I'm sure, like me, as you're listening or you're watching, there's somebody that you have in mind, that you're like oh my gosh, I have to share this with them.
And I want to give you a chance to share these extraordinary life lessons and practical wisdom from people in their 80s, 90s and 100s with the people you care about.
I also want to give our sponsors a chance to share a few words.
So Take a moment, share this with somebody that you love, and please don't go anywhere.
There are so many more things that you're about to learn and be inspired by after this short break.
Stay with us.
Welcome back.
It's your buddy Mel Robbins.
And today you and I have the honor of of spending time with and learning from Professor Carl Pillemer from Cornell University.
He is giving us the life lessons from 80, 90 and 100-year-old people that he's been talking to and studying and researching for the last 20 years.
One of the other big regrets from the Legacy Project you write a lot about this is that people later in life, near the end of their life, regret not having close relationships with their family.
And I've noticed like, as I'm getting older, I'm 56, I think a lot about my family.
And I think about the fact that my dad's in his 80s and how many Christmases do I have?
How many visits do I have?
Like, if you only see somebody a couple times a year, you might be talking about a dozen or 20 or 30 more times and that's it.
And so it sort of makes you think about the value and the importance of that.
But this was a big takeaway that people really both regretted not having close relationships with family and regretted not making amends with people in their life.
You're right.
I mentioned that, one of the biggest regrets.
That really surprised me.
Again, as I said, I was expecting affairs or criminal behavior or whatever.
The other thing that really surprised me and actually started me on my most recent book was I would ask older people about their major regrets in life.
And I was also really unprepared for how many of them said that their major life regret was an unresolved estrangement of some kind with their own parents, with their siblings and especially with their children.
And there was an exact moment when I decided to embark on yet another five-year research project about people's advice was when I was talking to a woman sort of in her 80s in Texas and she was this vibrant feisty, you know, liked a good glass of bourbon at night and told lots of stories about, you know, her second husband, et cetera, and things they did.
And when I asked her the questions I asked about her children, it was a complete change in mood.
Like it was, like a cast came over her face and then she actually literally began to pound her fists on the arm of her chair and say, you know, I just don't know what happened.
I never hear from them, and it's continually painful.
So we talked about it.
She said it had been more of a slowly developing estrangement.
She married a second husband who the kids didn't like that much, but they traveled the world.
They had some money.
They kind of lost contact.
Now, at the end of her life, her most profound regret was that these relationships weren't there.
So for the person who's listening or watching, who... finds themselves saying that to them.
Well, I never hear from them.
And you're starting to get that edge.
Well, I never hear from them.
What is your advice to that person who is noticing that they say that?
I never hear from them.
As we talk about distance and estrangement, I think that we have to remind ourselves that there are some family relationships that where there's been a history of abuse, either physical or sexual, where the person is currently a damaging or dangerous person, or where the relationship can be so emotionally stressful that there are some people who are right, at least temporarily, to break off contact.
And if they decide that they want to resume or stay in contact, doing so with the help of a psychological or counseling professional is a good thing.
So we have to acknowledge that.
But our studies have found that's really the minority of cases.
And so with many of the people who were estranged in permanent estrangements, I said what can you do to find help?
They would say, I need a time machine.
I mean, I would go back and stop this before it occurred.
And so what you can think about is anticipatory regret, which is something psychologists talk about.
We don't just regret it. those things that we did, but we think about things that we might regret.
And I think that that's a key message here.
So, for one example, you and your brother are having a horrible conflict and you decide never to speak to one another.
Well, that's gonna have ripple effects down to all the next generations.
Other cousins aren't gonna speak together.
There won't be family reunions.
There won't be family gatherings.
So the idea is to use anticipatory regret.
If I let this happen, Will I regret it?
I think that's a very powerful way to think about these things in your family.
You grew up with your sibling.
You have strong attachment to them.
You have biologically based attachment to the people you grew up with.
That you can't overcome rationally.
So do you really want those to deteriorate to a point, even if it seems right in this very moment?
I love that you're breaking this down, because I think you can intellectually know that at the end of your life you want to be surrounded by your family.
You want to have made amends.
You want your friends to be there.
And it's easy to let the small little cuts build up and resentment to take hold.
And as a parent myself of three adult kids.
What's interesting to me is that I believe that my relationship with them is 100 my responsibility.
And so if you could take These very emotional interviews and reflections from the 80 and 90 and 100-year-olds that wish they could go back in time and make one change,
What would be the one change that you would tell the person listening tactically that they should make?
Because I think that this is a conversation that both people will reflect on for themselves.
Personally as a parent, but a lot of adult kids or kids in their teens might share back to their parents in the hopes that you, we'll be able to have somebody have an epiphany about a small shift that actually creates a major positive ripple throughout an entire family and generations.
Let me answer it in one way, and I'm not saying this because I'm on this podcast.
I'm saying this because it fits with all of our work.
The general principle with your older parents or your adult children of something along the lines of let them is the actual principle advice that they would give
And it works both ways.
So I have tremendous, if I can confess to the world, I think that my children would agree.
I have lots of ideas about how my children should have different health habits.
And, you know, actually, fortunately, they're great at raising their children.
I can't complain about that.
But I have lots of ideas of what they should do.
And it's a daily process of not saying them.
And so I think what I had said to them both eventually is, look, I'm going to work on this.
The only exception I'll make if I think something is actually dangerous.
Like if there's something that I think is going to be life-threatening to somebody which hasn't occurred.
But otherwise, I'm going to try to withhold my advice.
Very similarly, like for adult children.
Yeah.
You don't need to go home at Thanksgiving and try to convince your parent that it's time for them to sell the house and move into assisted living.
I mean, in that situation, you let them make their own mistakes and accept natural consequences.
It doesn't mean that you can't give advice.
I would say one of the strongest things is don't give unsolicited advice.
I mean, just get out of the habit.
There are 30 or 40 years of research showing that unsolicited advice about a problem you're having is stressful, especially with somebody who hasn't been through the same issue.
I will give another strong principle for this.
These relationships need to some extent, if they're successful, to translate into something a little more like friendship.
So that you want to think about shared interests, for example, things you can do together.
There are those kinds of things.
Many people who overcame an estrangement didn't do it by having a huge conversation about the past.
They started to go to a bingo parlor together or they went to a weaving workshop together.
Or played golf together.
Played golf together.
They did.
So this idea, So I would say a real key piece for making these intergenerational relationships work is in these family relationships lighten up.
Lighten up about them.
I mean, you know, if somebody, you know, makes goofy jokes or whatever, I mean, everything is not...
Something that has to be done.
So over and over, like, this is a message of older people.
Again and again and again in all these relationships.
Lighten up about some of these things.
Everything doesn't have to be, you know, darkly serious.
And especially in marriage, that was a strong one.
Everything doesn't have to be this battle of the wills.
You can lighten up.
So that was a discursive answer to your question.
No, I actually love it.
It helps me apply because...
I do think the vast majority of people that have strained relationships with family members whether it's siblings or parents or kids or whatever kids' partners or in-laws is the slow burn and the fact that all this stuff just builds up and then everybody gets together and you're so tense that it's stressful to be together and it just becomes easier to avoid it.
You know, one of the things that I want to talk about, because you summarize this on page 193 of your bestselling book 30 Lessons for Living.
There are five lessons from people in their 80s, 90s and even their hundreds for living a really good life.
And those lessons are always be honest.
Say yes to opportunities, travel more.
Choose a mate with extreme care.
Say it now.
I want to take these one by one.
Let's start with the first one.
Always be honest.
Most people suffer from serious regret later in life if they have been less than quote, fair and square.
Yeah because, of course, the people I interviewed that term fair and square was something they often would have used in the 50s.
And that was the idea, that you offer people a square deal.
You offer something that's really fair.
Yeah, that was another surprise for me.
And I will say to listeners I know you may have in your mind a little sign going off, a cliche alert, because who wouldn't want to be honest?
But for them, it meant something deeper and more profound, because it was such a source of regret.
People who had deceived someone.
Actually, let me say, if you were on the receiving end of some kind of major dishonesty or betrayal,
You know, that was a major regret in your own life.
So people, of course, had been on the receiving end of that kind of thing, of infidelity.
And it was often it really would shake their faith, you know, in the grounds of human relationships.
But I would say one of the strongest regrets was a person's own dishonesty.
So I had many cases.
One man told me about his marital infidelity and he wasn't able to overcome his feelings of guilt about it, how he had never been able to be faithful, even though he tried.
His wife had put up with him.
I talked to other people who had been involved in questionable business deals.
And they had those same kinds of regrets.
So honestly integrity, having your life narrative at the end of your life because, by the way, narratives towards the end of life are extremely important.
You do really want to be able to sum up your life in some kind of a meaningful narrative.
And we could come back to that, but that's an important way of feeling like you're ready for whatever's next.
Having acted with integrity turns out to be a major thing that people value when they're summing up their life narrative.
So when you're thinking now, if you're doing something that is less than honest, if you're doing things that are deceitful or deceptive in some way, you can be pretty sure it's something that's going to interfere with your understanding of the value of your own life.
I think it's a question you could ask yourself, Dr Pillimer, like where am I not being honest with myself?
Or where am I not being honest with other people?
Exactly.
It's a way you can use right now.
So it's something that for people, it's extremely actionable.
Ask yourself right now, is there something I'm doing that is on the borderline of honesty?
Even that I will later regret.
Now I say in the book we aren't talking about.
You know the answer to the question do these pants make me look fat?
I mean, we aren't talking about some kind of radical honesty in which you can never be strategic, but it's more honesty and integrity in actions.
And yeah, I would say, you know like it might feel good now and it's not going to feel good as you review your life.
Well, I think that there's an even deeper way to apply this, because you know most people that are doing something really dishonest until they either get caught or they just can't bear it anymore.
They're not going to come clean.
But there is a level of self-betrayal and lying to self where I do believe there's an opportunity as you're listening or watching right now to truly ask yourself am I being honest with myself about whether or not I'm enjoying what I do for a living?
I love the quote that you said that, you know, somebody summed it up best.
I loved what I did And I made money doing it.
That loving what I did first was the priority because I spent so much time in my life at work.
And so maybe the honest thing for you is to admit to yourself that you're not enjoying where you are right now.
That you're kind of gaslighting yourself about your current habits.
That you're not actually taking care of yourself.
Like that...
I need to be honest now, because if I'm honest with myself that I'm not happy or honest with myself that I don't want to live another decade doing life the way I'm doing it, I need to make some changes.
That that right.
There is wisdom from an 80 or 90-year-old that you can apply if you're 18.
You hate your major, you're 20.
Be honest.
It's absolutely true and it's being honest with yourself too as you're thinking about a partner.
Am I deceiving myself in this?
You know, Do I not really have that powerful in-love feeling, but I'm simply just feel it's time?
One of the strongest arguments they would make is what Mel just said.
If you are in a job right now that is unfulfilling and you're doing it mostly for the money.
Really be honest with yourself.
I've learned after these studies to cringe every time one of my students says I want to be a chef, but I'm going to go work in the financial services industry, and then I'll do that later.
They argue that it is always too late to make that kind of change.
That if you are in a job that is unfulfilling, really, really think about changing it.
Their rule was if you don't feel good to get up in the morning and go to your job and you're staying in it, exactly like Mel said, you're not being honest with yourself.
And I would say that is to me one of the most impactful things.
They really argue that you need to choose work for its intrinsic value, not for the extrinsic rewards.
As I said, the one thing older people know about is time.
And they're amazed at how younger people use time.
It's like a desert tribes person would look at our profligate use of water.
Like, they just can't understand it.
So the idea of taking five years slogging in a job that is really unfulfilling, rather than taking a risk for something else you know.
Obviously you have to plan out your own life and what's feasible, but to the extent it is possible for you to honestly assess if you really hate this job and make a change, you know, as soon as you can, they would say it's urgent.
This is coming from a generation of people whose life experience was you stay in a job and you actually do that for your whole lifetime.
Whereas we now live in a reality where the average person is probably going to have I don't know 19 different jobs by the time that your career is over, at least.
And the wisdom is still be honest with yourself.
Do not waste your life toiling away at something you don't enjoy doing.
Figure out how to make a change.
It was one of the biggest surprises of the study.
People from the Depression-era generation who I figured would say oh, find a stable job, make as much money as you can.
Not a single person said that.
And you know what?
It was especially powerful from older women who had not had opportunities that younger women have today.
Over and over, they said, I would give anything for your opportunities.
Make use of them.
Don't languish in a bad job.
So anyway, I think that's absolutely right.
Well, that brings us to the second thing that people say that you need to do in order to live a good life, which is say yes to opportunities.
When offered a new opportunity or challenge, you are much less likely to regret saying yes and more likely to regret turning it down.
Yeah, I got that in.
That first insight first came from a successful entrepreneur who just said look, here's my lesson.
Unless you have a compelling reason to say no.
Always say yes if you're offered a new responsibility, offered a new opportunity.
In general, have your principle be.
That may take me out of my comfort zone, but I'm going to say yes.
This may also sound like a cliche, but I'm telling you that thousands of people told me this.
You absolutely are much more likely to regret things that you didn't do other than things you did.
You are more likely to look back on a missed opportunity that you could have done.
So I mean one thing they would also argue is, You can be a little more cautious about decisions that are irreversible.
But in many cases, they would say, you can experiment with a change that isn't so extreme.
So say yes to the initial steps in a new career.
Say yes to exploring something.
I think they say, and I'm sure you see it in your work, people become inert.
They become stuck.
One day blends into the next.
And that's where this being honest with yourself, being present and intentional as you look at your life.
And absolutely, they want you to say yes rather than say no if you can.
So if you're wondering about some decision, some new opportunity, I would encourage you folks to say yes rather than no.
Another thing that 80, 90, 100-year-olds say is, is the secret to a good life, travel more.
Travel while you can, sacrificing other things if necessary to do so.
Most people look back on their travel adventures, both big and small, as highlights of their lives, and they regret not having traveled more.
There are times when what sounds like a very specific piece of wisdom sheds light on bigger issues.
So the most interesting thing is a lot of very old people hadn't traveled very much when they were younger.
I interviewed a 93-year-old nun in Rochester, New York, whose idea of adventure was her family would leave the Polish enclave and go to the German enclave for dinner.
Or I interviewed people in East Texas who, until the World War II or Korea, had never been outside of their own county.
So they knew what it was like not to go anywhere.
And they valued travel incredibly.
I had one woman say to me...
You know, if you've got a choice between a kitchen remodel or a trip, I say take the trip.
I would say that was something we had to resolve in my own marriage, but I think we now do take the trip rather than the kitchen remodel.
But the idea there is it didn't have to be adventure travel.
It could be anything but something that takes you out of your normal daily route.
So people who were unable to travel much when they were young think that this is a critical thing for young people, in part because it symbolizes an attitude of openness and receptivity and adventure.
We think of older people as being more conservative than younger people, but in terms of what you should do with your life, they're generally radical.
It was over and over, don't waste your life.
The one woman told me you know, you have only a few years here on Earth.
You have to cram as much into it as you can.
You know, don't take for granted these things.
And travel is that symbol?
It's a symbol for doing things that they were unable to do and discovered later in life and felt that it was too late.
So I would think of it that way.
I thought it was an interesting insight.
Well, I also love that you're saying big and small because these are the things you can remember.
And I, as a kid, remember like actually, the one summer I remember was the summer that we rented a motor home and went on a tour of a bunch of the US national parks as a family.
I remember that as clear as day, one of the highlights of my childhood.
It was probably a two-week period.
It wasn't some big fancy trip.
I also remember the fishing trips that we would take that were just an hour from the house.
And so I love that reminder.
Cram it in.
Dr Pillimer, thank you for not only telling us the stuff that I think we all kind of know, but thank you for giving us practical ways we can apply it.
You are clearly showing us changes that we can make so that we can live a good life.
And here's the cool part.
You're not even close to done yet.
And so I wanna just hit the pause button.
I wanna give you a chance to share this with people that you care about.
I'm sharing this with my son, Oakley, my daughter, Sawyer, my daughter, Kendall.
I'm sharing this with both of my parents, my brother.
Everybody that you love deserves these life lessons.
And I think when they listen, they're gonna thank you.
So don't go anywhere.
There is so much more that we're gonna dig into when we return.
So stay with us.
Welcome back.
It's your buddy Mel Robbins today.
You and I are in the time machine.
We are headed to the future.
We are learning from 80, 90 and even 100-year-old folks about the things that they wish they could have changed at the age that you are now.
Dr Carl Pillemer is here from Cornell University, and there's so many things I want to ask you still.
Another thing that 80, 90, and 100-year-olds say is the key to a good life.
Choose a mate with extreme care.
The key is not to rush the decision, taking all the time needed to get to know the prospective partner and to determine your compatibility over the long term.
I've heard that choosing your life partner is the single most important decision you will make.
I believe it is.
Because most people we have to remember, despite our times right now, one thing that hasn't changed in 20 years and since Jane Austen's time Still, if you look at surveys, most young people want to get married, most young people plan to get married and most young people have as a value in that marriage being married for a lifetime.
So those values, even though people are doing it later, they're living together first.
The core desire to have a life partner is still there.
So I want to clarify that because it's not like nobody cares about this anymore.
I mean, this really is the most important decision that a lot of people make, because you can change your career.
So, yeah, they believe that younger people aren't careful enough.
They, you know, like they observe their own children.
People get to a certain age and it's time to get married and that sort of thing.
And they have certain rules for choosing a mate that I think are useful.
One.
I have mentioned already that it's okay to listen to the impressions of people who love you about your future mate.
You should absolutely choose carefully.
They argue that you should make sure that you have.
It's very interesting.
They all talk about a gut feeling.
So that people who violated that gut feeling that this was the right thing regretted it.
But one thing that may sound a little controversial but was their strongest piece of advice in this choosing a mate carefully is we may like to think that opposites attract, but they really go with.
Birds of a feather flock together.
They argue that you should marry somebody or put like, you know what?
I'll say marry, even though we know that this could mean a long-term partnership.
But just to make it so I don't have to say that every time, I'll say marry.
Marry someone who's a lot like you, who is fundamentally very similar to you.
So the idea is this is a fact, one of the strongest facts from research on social relationships of all kinds.
Unfortunately or fortunately, we like people who are similar to us.
For example, you'll notice that when you first have a child, Pretty soon your social network consists only of other people who have children, because you gravitate towards them.
And so your friendship network consists of people who also have children, and your other folks drop out.
That's just one example.
We like to be around people who are fundamentally similar to us more than we like to be around people who are very different.
And most important is people who share similar values.
So I think that's one of the things they mean about choose carefully.
You have to go beyond... attraction.
Another feature of choose carefully is that nobody wants to lose passion, but your relationship, they say you have to nurture qualities of friendship.
And I'm going to give one very specific piece of advice.
People who are in long marriages.
Offer this piece of advice, and I want to offer it directly to your listeners.
Embrace your partner's interests.
So rather than being angry that she's playing golf on Sunday, learn to play golf.
Rather than learning—and I can use my own daughter as an example—that one of the things your husband loves is fantasy football.
Rather than being angry about that, join the fantasy football league.
I had many older people say—people I call in the book tough old guys—
I never thought I'd go to opera, but I just decided my wife likes that and I'm going to do it.
People started to do the practical step, in so many relationships, of the anger that mounts because a person has a specific interest and the partner thinks it's ridiculous.
So here's one of the things that people—because I interview older people across the racial and ethnic spectrum—
And one piece of advice that came through from many of them is when you're choosing a mate, watch how your prospective partner plays games.
So I interviewed... What do you mean by that?
Like cards or basketball or all of it?
When you're actually playing a game, like when they're doing like a leisure activity, like playing a game.
And so, to make it concrete, one of my interviewees, who was Dominican from the Dominican Republic.
If you go to many social clubs or anywhere like where there are lots of Dominicans, you will see people playing dominoes.
Yeah.
And they play very cutthroat dominoes.
And she said, I observed the guy I was interested in.
I saw he was competitive, but he was a gracious loser.
I saw there was someone else who said in a Chinese senior center I watched my future wife play mahjong and I could see how she related to the other people.
And somebody else said...
I tried to play something like a tribute some game with my guy I was interested in and he threw the board up in the air and stormed out of the room.
So watching how your partner operates, again, being the researcher, that was one concrete thing.
The other piece of advice I took to heart is, if you're having a lot of serious arguments, you find there's a pattern to arguments.
Rather than therapy, the cure might be a sandwich.
Because my wife and I, that we'd be traveling and we'd forget to eat.
And our argument like who chose the bad hotel or why we got there after the museum closed would be unbelievably intense, until we realized that we were hungry.
And there's good research on this, Mel, showing that you should not argue when you're hungry.
And so one of the things the elders say like one of their little lessons is if you're having an intractable argument, get something to eat and see what happens.
I love that advice.
And here's what I'm realizing.
My mouth is kind of open because I'm now processing what you're saying.
My husband and my kids do that with me because I will get so lost in what I'm doing.
And then next thing you know, I'm bickering about something just so stupid and I'm the jerk, right?
And somebody in my family will go, when's the last time you ate?
And sure enough, five or six hours ago.
Try it out, a cup of tea and a biscuit if you're having a terrible argument.
So that was one of their key points.
Wow, I love that.
Yeah, I think it's a good one.
I think it's a really good one.
Well, you know, like another piece there's one piece of advice.
I think that really sums up a little bit too of this whole area.
If I could share it.
So sometimes a cliche is way more than a cliche.
So sometimes a saying or an expression has this real power even though it's been used a lot.
And when I asked older people for their advice for a long marriage, you can imagine one thing I heard.
I'm sure your listeners can.
Don't go to bed angry.
So I really wanted to unpack that.
What did that mean?
Why was that so critical when you were in your 80s and 90s beyond?
Why was that a piece of advice that you wanted to offer younger couples?
Why was it so important?
And One insight was from long experience.
Really, if an argument carries over to another day, it's just more of a problem and you should really be dealing with it.
But it also has to do with the sense of the shortness of life, because they realized that any night could be the last night.
So you need to resolve things beforehand.
Now you don't need to think that as a young person, but I thought that they really felt very strongly that a grudge that continues for more than a day or two is very diagnostic.
You know it really calls for attention and that their sense of the fragility of these relationships.
So I thought that was interesting too.
Well, I also think that if you go to bed angry and then you have one of those sort of cold standoff days, it gets less and less likely that you're going to address it.
Yeah.
And then the thing that was the source of the argument because it's never the thing you're arguing about, it's some deeper feeling goes unaddressed.
Whereas if you force yourself to lean toward the person and lean into well, what's really upsetting you, then you now are starting in your relationship to just be willing to talk about the deeper thing.
And that's almost nine times out of 10 at least.
I find in my marriage of 29 years that just being curious about the deeper thing being willing to apologize without going to bed, holding the grudge while you sleep or being pissed off.
It releases that pressure valve and it allows you to kind of resolve this thing quicker.
And it gives you a baseline understanding of where those sort of trigger points and landmines are emotionally for your partner and yourself.
I totally agree.
And it also, it's like a mediation.
You know, you set a deadline.
And so you know, like it gives you a deadline by which yes, you have to apologize or express understanding.
Yeah, because you might want, you know, it is helpful at times to step outside the room.
I'm going to take a step outside the room for an hour and cool off.
I'm going to go eat a sandwich, so I'm not angry with you.
But if the deadline is with yourself personally and with your partner, we don't go to bed angry.
We actually discuss what happened and say unpack it and apologize for what we need to before we go to bed.
That's really helpful practical advice.
And another thing that people in their 80s, 90s, and 100s say is the secret to a good life.
Say it now.
People wind up saying the sad words.
It might have been by failing to express themselves before it's too late.
Don't believe the ghost whispers.
The only time you can share your deepest feelings is while people.
This was one of the most profound regrets.
Over and over, people said, I wish I had expressed love more.
I wish I had asked for forgiveness.
Because that is a truly time-limited possibility.
Unless you believe in seances, it's going to be too late eventually to ask forgiveness, to offer an explanation, to offer an apology.
You know what else it's too late for sometimes?
Asking for information.
You may desperately want to know what, you know, your father didn't Vietnam or something like that, and it will be too late even to find out things.
So I would argue that that is a very actionable way thing for listeners.
If you are pondering saying something now, if you have something on your mind, if you're wondering about whether to do any of those things you know, use the five-second rule.
I mean, sort of.
I mean, if I can bring that in, I mean, I would say just do it.
I mean, really, really just do it.
One of the things I found in the estrangement work is how often people who had been waiting and waiting and waiting, they were going to call the brother they hadn't talked for 10 years.
More than one person described it as a backpack.
They'd been wearing this very heavy backpack.
One man said yeah, you know.
I woke up the next morning and realized I don't have to think about why I don't talk to my brother, Ed anymore.
So that saying things now is beneficial for you.
But I would say that cropped up.
Meaning when you're waiting for the right time to say something, you are wearing a weighted backpack.
Yeah.
And you're carrying it around.
And the second, that you 5 4 3 2, 1 pick up the phone or drive over to their house or write the letter, say what you need to say, you take the backpack off and you free yourself of the emotional weight of waiting for the right time.
And that freedom is available to you literally right now.
When you're done listening to this, you could pick up the phone or write the letter.
Like it's available right now.
Mel, I would even suggest that people think is there something I should be saying that I'm not?
So, for example, I know parents don't wear their kids because parents think their kids know it.
Don't look their kid in the eye and say, you know, I'm just really proud of how you've turned out.
You know, like I just want you to know that we've had our issues, but what you've done is really remarkable.
You know, I did a thing, Even like I had a beloved college professor who was nearing the end of her life and I didn't think about it, but I sort of five-seconded fine, I said I'm just nearby, I'm going to go see her.
And the feeling, before the end of her life, of expressing the gratitude for advancing my career.
I think it's an excellent exercise.
What am I not saying right now that if it were too late, I would really regret?
You can't assume that people understand how much you love them, how much you care about them, how proud you are of them.
It doesn't have to be negative things or forgiveness, but we often don't.
You know, it's what I said early on.
You treat these moments as precious rather than routine because our relationships get routine.
I think that's an excellent piece of advice is what might you not be saying?
That needs to be said now.
One of the other things that you write about that's on page 194 is another piece of advice, which is go easy on yourself regarding mistakes and bad choices you have made.
And there is this lesson around self-acceptance that so many people in their 80s 90s, their 100s wish they had learned when they were way younger.
And this is what one person in your study said.
What I've 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.
That was hard for me.
Because I came out of a background that was telling me if you just keep trying harder, you really could do it all right and be perfect.
It took me some time to accept the fact that it's not gonna work out that way.
And it's okay that it doesn't work out that way.
Once a decision is made or a direction is started, you don't get anywhere by looking back and second guessing.
And, as somebody taught me years ago, if you've bought a pair of shoes, Don't look at the shoes in the next door window.
Did these 80, 90 and 100-year-olds have any tactical or practical advice on how to start learning, how to be more self-accepting and kinder of yourself for the mistakes you've made or the decisions that you wish you could change?
Yes, and I love that shoes in the store window metaphor.
I mean, I think that that really is the concept that if we're constantly comparing ourselves to what we could have done, It is a really dangerous and damaging possible thing.
I would say one thing you could do if you're listening in to here is you could reflect on this.
Am I making certain kinds of decisions or do I tend to second guess myself?
Is there something I'm second guessing right now that would be better just to let go or just to leave it alone?
So you can analyze yourself.
Where are you doing this kind of of emphasizing your own regrets.
So one thing is just awareness, and you can definitely look at what's going on and you can let it go.
Another thing you can do is become aware that you're being pushed towards a kind of perfectionism by our culture.
And the more you are watching so-called influencers showing you their perfect refrigerator, their perfect bedroom, their perfect body, their perfect face, you are going to be pushed towards perfectionism.
So you can inoculate yourself against that.
But finally, you need to practice self-compassion.
You need to actually begin to understand that you're not going to express perfection and have this kind of a self-compassion and self-forgiveness.
So I think a number one thing is definitely being aware of it.
I will give one piece of elder wisdom, I think, which is really critical about this.
It.
I would sum it up as you're criticizing yourself, worrying about things you might have done, kind of thinking about you know, this pair of shoes you bought is really taking the long view.
There is a certain logic to asking, will I really care about this when I'm 80?
But this particular thing, I'm worrying about myself, you know, taking that view as if you were one of the elders looking back on your life.
Like.
So people tend to torture themselves about in the moment, about missed opportunities or mistakes.
But by taking the long view, will this really matter over the longest period of time?
I think that you can get a certain amount of peace with it.
So I would say those are kind of the essence of elder wisdom on that.
The other thing about this kind of regret is one thing is to focus on what you learned from it rather than on how bad it was or whatever you did or failed about it.
So you can reframe it.
You can shift it to, here's what I learned from it, rather than here's how I messed things up.
One of the big things that I learned from your work is this concept that you call learning how to be happy in spite of.
And I want to read to you from page 208.
Lots of unpleasant things are going to happen to you in life.
And when they do, you have two choices.
You can mope and sulk and you can feel sorry for yourself, or you can put on a brave face and get on with your life.
I have come to call this attitude happy in spite of.
This viewpoint contrasts with that of many people, which I'd call happy if only.
The dominant perspective among young people is, I'll be happy if only I.
If only I lose the weight, if only I find a partner, if only I get divorced, if only I find a different mate, if only I get healthy, get rich, and on and on.
The experts believe, meaning people in their 80s, 90s and even 100 that happy, if only attitude is futile and leads to disappointment.
And one of the reasons why this is something that has been a huge change in my life is that it's occurred to me That it's so easy to be waiting around for happiness.
It's so easy to be disappointed with where you are.
It's so easy to wake up and be in a bad mood for no reason at all.
That it's a skill that you can learn, that I practice now to be happy in spite of everything that's going on.
To be happy for no reason at all.
And I'd love to have you unpack this choice that you have.
That if you could embrace this attitude, that you can choose how to have a good attitude and be in a good mood and not dwell on your expectations or disappointment or make it a habit to be unhappy.
How important this is and how much it changes your life.
Yeah, and here's where you get to a core of wisdom that is in some ways unique to older people.
So in some ways that insight to me justified the project, because You can say choose to be happy and someone can very reasonably say back to you well, that's just a platitude.
What about that?
But when you get to be 70 and beyond, just about everybody—and no body hacking is not going to fix this—just about everybody bears some burden of chronic disease, and sometimes crippling chronic disease.
And just about everybody has experienced loss.
You've certainly lost your parents.
You may have lost siblings.
You may have lost your partner.
So you have a whole group of people who have experienced many of the things that young people worry about.
Second, we have a fascinating finding from hundreds of studies that, on average, older people are happier than younger people.
So if you ask a survey item like, how happy are you on a scale of 1 to 10?
Have the past five years been some of the best of your life?
People over 60, especially over 65, are happier than younger people.
So you've got those two things.
How can people who are experiencing an accumulation of loss and negative life events still be happier than younger people are?
How would that occur?
And one of the things that we found and it's supported by other research is this conscious choice to be happy, not because of all circumstances aligning perfectly, but choosing to be happy given the current circumstances in which you now exist.
And there are various techniques they employ which do map on to other ones that people do use in psychology, but these are their own indigenous ones.
They would argue that it involves things like waking up and saying I'm going to make this as good a day as it can be.
It's waking up and saying, as one of my interviewees did, basically, this can be a good day.
How can I make this count?
And it does involve trying to consciously avoid negative emotions about your situation, to look for what's working in my life rather than what isn't working in my life.
So they would argue again and again.
We're a group of people, if I could speak as one.
We're a group of people that a lot of crap is happening to.
I mean if you're going to be an old person.
Unless you can choose to be happy in spite of your circumstances, you're not never going to be happy.
Every single old person would be miserable.
Because if you were 30, got the level of arthritis and your friends are dying off and all these things are happening, you would just hate it and be miserable.
They are obliged to find a way to get around this.
So that's why I think again.
This notion of 2000 older people yelling at you, this one insight is one way to get yourself moving in that direction.
And just think of how much it would change your life.
Yeah.
And it's not the year.
I love that saying that it's not the years in your life, it's the life in your years.
And if you could teach yourself to default toward choosing intentionally to look at what you do have, choosing intentionally to look at what is working, choosing intentionally to wake up and make today a good day simply because you woke up, what a difference that would make in your life.
You know.
One other thing I wanted to ask you is that you likely aren't going to make it to be very old if you're not taking care of yourself.
So what do 80, 90, and 100-year-olds say is the secret to staying healthy through life?
Like, what do they wish they had done earlier?
This is one of the insights that that when I give talks on this, that people want to hear the least.
So the one thing I, when I tell them elder wisdom about your health, I get this feeling of fingers and ears and I'm not listening.
But they had, I think, a profound insight that I wish people trying to do public health messaging would embrace.
And I've tried to argue that in different venues.
Young people when they think about their health, and I imagine some of you out there have said this or know people who said it.
I like smoking.
I like eating junk food.
I like not exercising.
And I don't care how long I live.
I really don't.
If I enjoy these things so much, if I die at 69 rather than 78, who cares?
What America's elders know is you will not just die at 69.
Medical science is going to keep you alive in a state of incredibly burdensome chronic disease for one or two decades.
So your worry isn't Dying, they say.
Don't worry about dying.
Worry about chronic illness.
And we know now from increasingly powerful research what you do in your 30s and 40s and 50s can be more important than what you do in your 60s and 70s.
So these sort of heart-healthy, chronic disease prevention lifestyles in midlife are really critical.
So one of the main messages that they want to say is anytime you hear yourself saying you know, I don't really care about this unhealthy habit.
You don't really need to live that long.
That's not your worry.
You know, your worry, you aren't going to live unhealthily and then drop dead.
You're going to be burdened with chronic disease.
And when you see it in lots and lots of older people and hear them talk about it, many of them are so regretful that they couldn't stop their spouse from smoking.
They couldn't, you know, get someone to become more healthy.
And it sort of ruined not just one year but, You know, a decade or two of life, because you will be kept alive in a state of very burdensome chronic disease.
So I've tried to argue over and over.
That should be your motivation.
One of the main takeaways from people in their 80s, 90s and 100s in your research is that as you near the end of your life and realize you don't have 50 more years, you have a handful.
That knowledge... creates gratitude, the grateful knowledge that today is another day.
Every day, one of the people in your research study said, every day, I say, yes, I'm alive.
And every night, I say, thank you.
I always pick the most simple, most mundane thing to be thankful for, because that's where the meaning of your life is at.
What did you learn about the power of of being just grateful for another day and thankful for the mundane thing that actually matters in life?
I'm not sure if you've ever had anybody on who's sort of a gratitude.
You know the kind of gratitude happiness researcher.
So this sense of gratefulness for small, positive things is a key part of this broader concept of that happiness is a choice rather than a condition.
So it is a shift in focus to again gratitude for those things in your life that are working, rather than focusing on those that aren't.
I'm going to metaphorically pound my fist on the table and say that this is something that your listeners should really absorb and take to heart, because it's practical wisdom that is so evidence-based that if you are in a very bad time, things are extremely stressful.
If you can infuse a positive emotion into that, your negativity will drop.
So one thing that has been extensively studied is people who are caring say, for a person very debilitated with Alzheimer's disease.
Those people who are unbelievably stressed, constantly up all night the person is wandering, but who are encouraged to think I'm doing something great here.
Mm-hmm.
I'm fulfilling my filial or marital responsibility.
I am showing that I am a competent person because I can do this.
Simply in infusing, or I'm grateful I still have this person.
You can infuse positive emotions.
It's not like you have to get rid of the negative ones, but there's pure scientific evidence.
If you bring in positive emotions into a very negative and stressful experience, the negativity drops.
So-
Professor Pillemer, after immersing yourself in all this research and really extracting the wisdom from 80, 90 and 100 year olds on how you can improve your life, what is the big takeaway that's changed your life the most?
I have a big one and then I have a smaller piece of advice for your listeners.
But I would say, for all of it, of all the things I learned, can be summed up in an expression which also reflects some earlier things we've talked about, but I'm going to take the risk of reemphasizing it.
And that is, live like your life is short.
That is understand that every older person I talk to, and the older they were, the more likely they were to say life is short, or life is really short, or life is really really, really short.
Or as one retired engineer said, It seems like it passed by in a nanosecond.
I had a 99-year-old.
Actually, one of my favorite quotes in the book is a 99-year-old looked at me and said I don't know what happened because the next thing you know you're 100.
I can guarantee to every person listening to this that when you get in your 80s, 90s and beyond, you will say I cannot believe how quickly this passed.
It seemed like my life passed by almost in an instant.
Now, the thing about older people is is they're telling you, don't let that depress you.
Use that as a superpower.
I mean use it as an understanding to both take the long view.
Whether my colleague has a nicer office than me isn't going to make any difference to me in 60 years.
And, in the short term, life is going to seem so short that I cannot waste it in things that aren't ultimately fulfilling.
So I would say the one message that came in all the books I've done all the research is this overpowering sense of how short life really is.
And over and over, people said, there's not enough time to cram everything you want to in it.
Don't waste your life.
So I would say I think in the Hebrew scriptures, teach us to number our days so that we may get ourselves a heart of wisdom.
It's very hard to do because it's so depressing for people.
But if you Live like your life is short.
You will make very different decisions about how long you stay in a crappy job, about how long you stay in a bad relationship, about how long you wait to express love to people you love, about how much time you spend with your children when they're growing up.
That's what older people have to tell you that you're going to come to my age and you're going to say wow, this was a short time I had.
And you're going to reflect very seriously on how you spent your time.
And I think if you live like your life is short, you have a pretty strong chance of a better life.
I am so grateful that you're here.
I feel so inspired by everything that you shared with us because it is true.
I don't care how old you are, whether you just finished high school or you are in your 80s.
When you look back, it feels like it went in the blink of an eye.
And what you shared today.
You gave us the practical tools and the powerful insights and the life-changing wisdom that we need in order to start living more intentionally, choosing happiness, making amends and doing the things that are well within our power, starting today to change the course of our lives.
And so I just want to say thank you.
Thank you, Professor Pillimer, for being here.
Thank you for the research that you're doing.
Thank you for showing up and sharing all of this with a sense of urgency that this is not only something to pay attention to and to share and to be inspired by, but it is a gift and an opportunity for you to start changing your life right now.
And thank you.
Thank you for choosing to listen to something that could change your life.
Thank you for caring about the wisdom of people in their 80s, 90s, and 100s.
And I guarantee you, if you could get in a time machine and you could go and time travel and see yourself at the age of 90 or 100, you would tell yourself right now exactly what you just learned today.
So don't just listen, go do something about it.
And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you as your friend because remember, he said one of the five big things that you need to do is to say it.
So I'm going to say it.
I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life.
And now you have a roadmap, wisdom from people in their 80s, 90s and 100s that you can use to create a better life, starting right now.
All righty.
I'll see you in the very next episode.
I'll be there to welcome you in the moment you hit play.
So when they... Gosh, I lost the question.
That's okay.
That's all right.
Oh, my God.
Sorry.
My mouth is... So, like, is this okay so far?
You're fantastic, Trace.
How are we doing?
Okay.
I just wanted to get a little feedback.
No, you're fantastic.
You're doing dynamite.
I'm going to say something.
If this isn't appropriate for the podcast... Don't worry about it.
You just keep talking, Carl.
There you go.
You're magnificent.
Well, thanks.
You're welcome.
Oh, sorry.
Hey, Trace.
I'm, like, ready to go to the bathroom.
Sorry.
Never mind.
I'm just grateful you're here.
It's been such a pleasure, Mel, and I hope there'll be more conversations to come.
There will.
Oh, and one more thing.
And no, this is not a blooper.
This is the legal language.
You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you.
This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.
I'm just your friend.
I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.
Got it?
Good.
I'll see you in the next episode.
