The keeper of the good life
Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, Zen priest and professor at Harvard Medical School — and the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running study of adult life ever conducted. For more than 85 years it has followed the same people — and now their children — asking a simple question: what makes a good life?
Its clearest answer surprised even the researchers. It isn't wealth, or fame, or working harder. Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. How connected and satisfied people were in their relationships at 50 predicted their physical health at 80 better than their cholesterol did.
He shared it in a TED talk that has been viewed tens of millions of times, and in his book "The Good Life." What strikes him most is how interconnected everything is: emotional wellbeing, relationships and physical health aren't separate silos — they move together.
He is also unafraid of the subject at the edge of longevity. Being reminded of the reality of death, he's found, doesn't tend to depress people — it tends to make them happier, and clearer about what matters.
