If asked to predict, what personal traits do you think would make later life happy?
Having studied the matter for decades, psychiatrist George Vaillant has made his choices. His two top candidates are: social aptitude and the capability not to abuse alcohol.
Vaillant enjoys a privileged vantage point from which to make this judgment. Since 1967, he has been following the results of a unique research project, the so-called Grant Study of Harvard College males, most of them in the classes of 1942, 1943, and 1944.
It is this study that has led him to emphasize the role of restraint in the use of alcohol and the ability to form good relationships with other people.
Besides these two, Vaillant identifies five other factors that, in the instance of the Harvard alums, have contributed to a satisfying old age. These are education, stable marriage, not smoking, exercise, and healthy weight.
Much of this information I have gleaned from the article “What Makes Us Happy?” by Joshua Wolf Shenk, published in The Atlantic for June, 2009. In the past, I have also read some of Dr. Vaillant’s writings and heard him speak more than once about his research findings.
His avoidance of psychiatric jargon puts his conclusions within easy reach. In a 2001 column, I quoted from his website some other lessons that he has drawn from his work. All these years later I still believe in their wisdom.
The following six of Vaillant’s conclusions strike me as worth quoting again for the insight they hold for later life:
“It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us; it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age;
“Healing relationships are facilitated by a capacity for gratitude, for forgiveness, and for taking people inside.
“A good marriage at age 50 predicted positive aging at 80. But, surprisingly, low cholesterol levels at age 50 did not.
“Alcohol abuse – – unrelated to unhappy childhood – – consistently predicted unsuccessful aging, in part because alcoholism damaged future social supports.
“Learning to play and create after retirement, and learning to gain younger friends as we lose older ones, add more to life’s enjoyment than retirement income.
“Objectively good physical health was less important to successful aging than subjective good health. By this I mean it is all right to be ill as long as you do not feel sick.”
Among these six rules of thumb, I tend to value most the first three. They make more specific what social aptitude means. Our response to other people ─ especially spouses, children, siblings, extended family members, and friends ─ determines in large part our own happiness.
Among the inner experiences of early and later old age, my biggest surprise has been discovering new feelings about relationships. If I could summarize these feelings in a single word, that word would be benevolence.
Benevolence can be best understood as desiring the happiness of others. That’s what I feel in later life much more than I did earlier.
Having many more years to reflect on life makes a difference. You get abundant chances to look back on your life and, among other things, to recognize what a struggle it is to live well.
Thinking about my own numerous missteps and errors of judgment, I can sympathize with the efforts of others to deal with such issues. It has become easier to identify with people struggling to overcome obstacles.
I take it as a gift of later life to appreciate, more deeply than ever before, how difficult it can be to find happiness. Instead of feeling competitive with others, I now root for them to be successful.
I have also found that later life has a way of making us less threatening than we may have been in the past. That prompts me to talk with others of all ages and of a variety of situations.
During recent decades, I have made it a practice to greet people who walk down my street or around my neighborhood. In those instances, especially when people look at me, I almost invariably wish them a good day.
Some people welcome these greetings; others may find them weird; and still others remain absorbed in their own iPod worlds. But reaching out to people of all ages and situations contributes notably to the satisfactions of later life.
Mind you, my feelings of benevolence have their limits. I know myself to have less empathy toward some others than I would like to. Accepting one’s own emotional limitations also remains part of life’s challenges, even in the later years.
These reflections I offer by way of my own commentary on Dr. Vaillant’s analysis of what makes for satisfaction in later life. I believe that he has found the right emphasis, one that I feel thankful to be experiencing in my own life now.
Richard Griffin
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