The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, five key insights (with Marc Schulz), Next Big Idea Club

Robert Waldinger · 13 Jan 2023

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Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Good relationships keep people healthier and happier, and that is the single clearest lesson of the Harvard Study.

Their wordsIf we step back and look at all 84 years of the Harvard Study and boil the findings down to a single principle for living, one life investment that is supported by similar findings across a wide variety of other studies, it would be this: good relationships keep us healthier and happier, period.
Our reading
Relationships do not look after themselves: left neglected, they wither like unused muscles.

Their wordsWe tend to think that once we establish friendships and intimate relationships, they will take care of themselves. But like muscles, neglected relationships atrophy.
Our reading
A good life is forged from the very things that make it hard, since joy and pain in relationships come together.

Their wordsIt is almost impossible to have one without the other. A good life, in fact, is forged from precisely the things that make it hard.

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