How to lead a happier, more fulfilling life (with Dr. Robert Waldinger) (Transcript)

Please note the following transcript may not exactly match the final audio, as minor edits or adjustments could be made during production.

Chris Duffy: I am Chris Duffy, and you are listening to How to Be a Better Human, A fresh pair of socks, jumping into a lake, laughing so hard with a friend that we both snort. Those are a few of my favorite things, and no, on today's show, we are not performing an alternate version of the Sound of Music, but those are the first things that come to mind when you ask me what makes me happy.

So what makes you happy, and what if the things that actually make us happy aren't what we expect? Well, Robert Waldinger is a scientist who's trying to get to the bottom of these questions. His TEDx talk is one of the most popular of all time. It has more than 40 million views. So clearly there are a lot of people out there who are interested in finding out these answers, and here's a clip of what Robert has to say.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: What keeps us healthy and happy as we go through life? If you weren't gonna invest, now in your future best self, where would you put your time and your energy? Pictures of entire lives of the choices that people make and how those choices work out for them. Those pictures are almost impossible to get.

Most of what we know about human life, we know from asking people to remember the past. And as we know hindsight is anything but 2020, we forget vast amounts of what happens to us in life. And sometimes memory is downright creative. But what if we could watch entire lives as they unfold through time?

What if we could study people from the time that they were teenagers all the way into old age to see what really keeps people happy and healthy? We did that. The Harvard study of Adult Development may be the longest study of adult life that's ever been done to get the clearest picture of these lives.

We don't just send them questionnaires, we interview them in their living rooms. We get their medical records from their doctors. We draw their blood, we scan their brains, we talk to their children. We videotape them, talking with their wives about their deepest concerns. So what have we learned? What are the lessons that come from the tens of thousands of pages of information that we've generated on these lives?

Well, the lessons aren't about wealth or fame or working harder and harder. The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this, good relationships keep us happier and healthier, period.

Chris Duffy: Personally, I'm so fascinated by Robert's work and I kind of find it reassuring that so many other people want to dig into these questions too.

What makes a meaningful life? What gives us true and lasting happiness? How can we cultivate and maintain those relationships? We're gonna hear all about that in just a minute, but first, a quick break.

Okay. And we are back. We're talking about happiness on today's episode.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: I'm Bob Waldinger. I'm a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School. I'm the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, and I am a Zen priest. I. This study started out in 1938 and followed the same group of people from the time they were teenagers all the way into old age, and now we've started studying their children.

Chris Duffy: And you've come up with some amazing findings from this that I think have really changed the way that people think.

Mostly that the things that matter when you look at people's full lives are not the things that we often think matter. Does that change how you think about your own career and your own life?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Harvard selects for all these people who've been so good at getting good grades and jumping through hoops and and achieving things, and...

I've always had this sense that we spend our time, you know, reaching for brass rings and trying to get awards that don't really mean anything. And that when all is said and done and we're all gonna be dead and most people aren't gonna ever remember us, none of these things that seem so important during life are really gonna be important.

So why are we all doing it? And that's been the thing that has kind of nagged at me. Even as I've spent my whole career at Harvard, so it's been a really helpful thing for me to pay attention to that in how I live my own life. I've spent more time now connecting with other people than I used to because I realize that it is the thing that makes me happier and makes me feel more grounded in my life than all the achievements that I've had.

Chris Duffy: I wonder how your Zen practice ties into this as well.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: It totally ties in-- practicing Zen and hearing Zen philosophy. It is the thing that asks you always to face your mortality, to face the finiteness of life, and to ask yourself, okay, what's really important? And instead of being depressing, which it could seem, it's actually exhilarating because it means that I pay more and more attention to the stuff that, uh, that I care about the most.

Chris Duffy: So thinking about that as we are starting to emerge or, or thinking about emerging from this and, and many of us have had that social safety net kind of decimated. What are things that people can do to rebuild it in a better, more robust, healthier way?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, first is just to be more active even than you think you need to be.

So I used to think, you know, I've got my friends, I've got my family, and those relationships kind of take care of themselves. And one of the things that the pandemic has highlighted for us is that they don't just take care of themselves. That we drift farther apart. We get to feeling more distant from each other when we don't have contact.

So one of the things that we can do is overcome the inertia that we all have to just stay to ourselves, get back on our email, get back on social media and not really reach out to somebody and say, Hey, let's take that walk. Let's go play tennis, let's have a drink. Let's do something together again in real time.

And what I hope it does is gives us the opportunity to reshape some things in ways that are better for us to find ways of spending time with people, to reinvent ways of spending time with people that, um, we didn't have before. Uh, to get out of ruts. Uh, my rut, for me, my rut is email. I could sit and do email all day long.

I could edit people's writing and my own writing all day long. I could sit all weekend and do that. And what I'm realizing is that I really have to get myself out of this chair I'm sitting in and make a conscious effort to make those plans with people and, and set up those activities. They're not gonna happen by themselves for me.

Chris Duffy: I, I'd love to hear what are some more of those ways that, that you think we should change things and do, and do them in a better way? Since it seems like that is kind of tangibly one of the really incredible things about your work is that you get to see like, okay, over 80 years, what are the habits and what are the… the choices that that actually pay off, so, so what are some more of those?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Some of them that we got from our older people, as they look back and we ask them, what do you most regret about your life? What do you wish you had done differently? And I mean, for me, one of them is I should get in my car every morning and commute, on the, the highway for 45 minutes every morning to the hospital where my office is, because that's where I need to go to have all my meetings and do all my work.

That should waste it an hour and a half of my life every day. Now what I'm finding is that I don't have to do that, and that in fact I can connect with people in all kinds of new ways, um, that don't involve the repetitive commute.

Um, that's just one way for me that I'm gonna rearrange my life to use my time in a more meaningful way, hopefully.

Chris Duffy: We've talked a lot about social connections already. What other factors did the study find that improved wellbeing?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Something that won't surprise you is self-care really makes a difference.

And so I'm gonna sound like your grandmother here, but not smoking cigarettes.

Chris Duffy: Well, doesn't sound like my grandma already. Okay.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, um, but, so, okay. Not smoking cigarettes, not abusing alcohol, not abusing drugs, exercising regularly, eating decent food. And again, this is not easy for some people who don't have access to decent food, who, you know, who, who don't have some of the privileges that many of us have to do the self-care we need.

But when that self-care makes a huge difference.

Chris Duffy: This is so fascinating. So, uh, beside we have social connections, we have self-care. Were there any other factors that you found in the study that improved wellbeing?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yes, we found that being securely connected to at least one other person was really important.

So what do I mean by that? Well, you know, you have lots of relationships and not everybody is your nearest and dearest, and they don't need to be that. In fact, many of our casual relationships are super good for us and helpful. But we asked our original guys at one point, who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared?

Hmm. Make a list of all those people and some of them could list 5, 6, 7 people that they could call if they were really sick or scared, and some of them couldn't list anyone. Hmm. Including their spouses who they could call in the middle of the night. So what we have seen, and we've demonstrated this with a bunch of studies, is that people who feel really connected, like there's somebody in the world who's got my back, that those people stay healthier longer and they live longer.

What we call, we call it in my world, secure attachment, that if you are securely attached to at least one other person in the world, from the time of early childhood, all the way through the end of life. You are better off both physically and emotionally. So one of the things you can do is to try to put yourself in a place where you're gonna rub elbows with people with whom you might make connections.

So in some ways, new friendships, new relationships are an accident, but you can make yourself more accident prone.

Chris Duffy: Have you found. And it may be outside the scope of what you've done research on, but have, have you found that social media and those kinds of like digital connections building communities online or, or that aren't in person, can that take the place of or supplement the in-person connections that people may be missing?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yeah, that's such an important question. The fact is we don't really know how social media are affecting us. Uh, we have some ideas and one of the things that's pretty clear is that one size does not fit all. Some people find themselves taken into really dark places by social media. They go on social media.

They find themselves comparing themselves to others negatively. They find it depressing and demoralizing, and they find that their wellbeing is worse and their sense of isolation grows. There are other people who have just the opposite experience where they feel like, my gosh, I've never found a community of like-minded people before.

I've never found a community with my particular, uh, rare illness before. Um, that, that I can talk to. I mean, and so what we know is that there's a whole spectrum from people feeling more isolated to feel it, people feeling wonderfully powerfully connected and everything in between.

Chris Duffy: Yeah. I think it's so interesting that you put it as a, it's not a one size fits all.

Uh, 'cause I even find for myself that it's, it's not even a, one type of media is the same as the other. Right. Exactly. Like I find that when I use, when I get deeper into the media that are more like about racking up likes or followers. Then I do feel like, oh, this is a comparison and it makes me feel bad and or stressed about where I am in my own career.

And whether I said something that now no one likes this post. What does that mean about me? Whereas on the other side, when I have like subscribed to people's newsletters. And then responded and said, oh, I really love this newsletter, stranger, who is an artist who writes about her process. And then now all of a sudden, this woman, Edith and I are friends who email.

Because I'm, uh, we have something in common and we, we share interests and I feel like, oh, this is an actual friend who I have never met in person, whereas I, I'm not sure that I feel that way when someone like just gives a thumbs up logo next to a photo that I missed. Yeah,

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yeah. Well, I love what you're pointing out, which is that it's one size doesn't even fit me on all platforms at all times of the day.

What I've found is that for myself, I can do a kind of litmus test when I'm doing a particular thing online. Um, when I'm reading something, when I am connecting on a social media platform and I pay attention, how is it making me feel? Is it lowering my energy? Is it making me feel a little gloomier or is it making me feel more connected and more engaged and more upbeat?

And that's a kind of personal litmus test that I can use to see what the effects are on me. And then hopefully spend more time in those places that energize me and make me feel more upbeat and stay away from those places that bring me down.

Chris Duffy: It's fascinating because I, I find that same thing is true for me with offline activities as well.

Yes. Like, I want to make friends. And so, you know, people always say, oh, a good way to make friends is to join an athletic league, or like do an intramural sport or something. And I just have to be honest with myself. I have never liked sports and I'm not good at them. And when someone watches me play softball, they do not say I wanna be friends with that person.

No one ever, no one ever has me on their team and then goes, let's hang out more. They go, let's never be on the same team as that guy again. Whereas when I go to the comedy theater and I, I get to hang out and make jokes with people all of a sudden, then there is a place where I feel like, uh, I feel safer and I feel seen, and I feel like when I hang out at the bookstore, you know, uh, these are, look, I'm naming the places that are real for me, but also these are like the stereotypical you're not good at sports places.

But yes, that is true for me.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: And that's such an important thing to point out. Like, you know, I was also the last guy to be chosen for the team. You know, in middle school, in gym class. Um, but I think it, it points to something that's really important, which is that you love doing comedy, you're good at it.

And so you bring a kind of excitement and energy that other people can enjoy and connect with, right? And so if we find, if we do the things that we enjoy and we're good at, we are more likely to connect with and attract other people. And again, so it's kind of putting away the shoulds. Okay, I should want to play softball.

Or pickleball as an older person, but that's not my thing. Yes, that's just not my thing. So let's find the things. Let me try to find the things that, that I'm good at and that I like and connect with people around those.

Chris Duffy: Well, I, we talked about the things that we should, should do, right? The things that are good and what we have worked for success and happiness and wellbeing.

What are things that people should actively avoid that kind of sabotage, happiness and wellbeing?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Part of the avoid? Well, okay, one thing to avoid is. Certainty about what your future is gonna be. So, I'm an introvert. I'm always gonna be an introvert. I'm not good at connecting with people. I'm never going to be end of story.

That that can close off what is in fact, the truth of life, which is that unexpected things come along all the time. And we have the capacity to do new things and do things differently at any age. Yeah. And so be careful of your certainties question, the things you think you know about yourself and about the world in that way. Uh, particularly the gloomy certainties.

Chris Duffy: Okay. We're gonna take a quick break, but we will be right back with more from Bob and so many more insights from his research. Don't go anywhere.

We are back and we've been talking about happiness and what makes life meaningful with Dr. Robert Waldinger. But now let's actually get a little bit deeper into the study where so much of his findings are coming from. So here's how Bob described that study. In his talk.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Studies like this are exceedingly rare.

Almost all projects of this kind fall apart within a decade. Because too many people drop out of the study or funding for the research dries up, or the researchers get distracted or they die, and nobody moves the ball further down the field. But through a combination of luck and the persistence of several generations of researchers, this study has survived.

Since 1938, we've tracked the lives of two groups of men. The first group started in the study when they were sophomores at Harvard College. They all finished college during World War II, and then most went off to serve in the war. And the second group that we've followed was a group of boys from Boston's poorest neighborhoods, boys who were chosen for the study specifically because they were from some of the most troubled and disadvantaged families.

In the Boston of the 1930s, most lived in tenement, many without hot and cold running water. When they entered the study, all of these teenagers were interviewed. They were given medical exams. We went to their homes and we interviewed their parents. And then these teenagers grew up into adults who entered all walks of life.

Some climbed the social ladder from the bottom all the way to the very top. And some made that journey in the opposite direction. The founders of this study would never in their wildest dreams have imagined that I would be standing here today, 75 years later, telling you that the study still continues.

Every two years, our patient and dedicated research staff calls up our men and asks them if we can send them yet one more set of questions about their lives.

Chris Duffy: So thinking about this research and, and all of the findings and everything we've been talking about. This research took place. Looking at men, white men, did you find any differences with women or cultural differences, or have there been other differences with other populations?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yes. I'm glad you pointed out that we started studying all white men. It is the most politically incorrect sample you could possibly put together now, right? And we are constantly having to explain when we ask NIH. To keep funding us. Why it's still valuable to do this. The first generation we started studying the wives when I came into the study in 2003, we have found really important gender differences and lots of similarities.

Of course, what we have not been able to do is look at more diverse populations because the value of our study is in having the records of what people's parents were like and what their grandparents were like, and what they said to us and what their health was like. We can't now recruit a new sample, let's say, of people of color, uh, because we won't have those previous generations in our files.

Right? And that's a shame. But there are other studies doing that. So there are other research projects doing the very necessary work of studying more diverse populations. The one thing I do wanna say is that our diversity was socioeconomic diversity. We had super poor and disadvantaged people. And what we know now is that what looks like diversity in 2021 is not gonna look diverse in 2081.

It's gonna be something different again. And so we're always trying to have our research populations better and better reflect what the world looks like now.

Chris Duffy: So since you do have, uh, now, uh, women in the study and, and a second generation, what are the differences that you found between the, the men and women and or non-binary people who I imagine are probably in the second generation as well?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: In terms of gender differences, what we know, not just from our study but from other studies, is that marriage conveys an advantage. You live longer if you're married, that that we know for both men and women, but men actually get a bigger longevity benefit from marriage than women do.

Chris Duffy: Well, I guess this, this potentially ties into that, which is, so what do you think can be done about that? Is that, is that just a question of inequality and perhaps like unequal distribution of labor inside of a relationship or, or does that mean that if you're a woman, you should think twice before? If you're a heterosexual woman, you should think twice before getting married.

Just period. I mean, maybe it's all of the above.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Married people, partnered people are on average, happier, but that's, that's averages of thousands of people, that there are many people who are so happy being single. Uh, really happy. So being happy is not a function of being married. You know, so many people have written about this and there've been some decent studies about it, that the unequal distribution, what's often called the double burden now, so women much more in the workforce than they used to be 50 years ago.

But that means, but, but, but often the domestic burden, still disproportionately on women to do child rearing, to take care of the house, to cook to, to do all those things of these labors around the house. That is equalizing more now, but it's still highly unequal. And so the question remains if we get to a point of real gender equity.

In our domestic and work lives, will that benefit that happiness benefit be the same for men and women? We don't know yet.

Chris Duffy: What is one thing that you wish that everyone knew about your work? Like what do you wish that the whole world had? Like everyone in every school was learning This one basic thing about the work.

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Ah, studying lives over time. Is hugely important that it really helps us learn about life in ways that we can't learn any other way. So most of what we know about life, we know from taking snapshots, studying a group of 30 year olds today in 2021 and a group of 60 year olds in 2021. But those snapshots can lead us to false conclusions about how life goes for people.

And so studying people over time is such a valuable way of learning about how human life happens for most people.

Chris Duffy: And of all the things that you've seen that change people's lives for the better. What do you think is the most difficult one to implement? What's the most difficult change to implement?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Um, socioeconomic equity and equity of opportunity.

That's the hardest that so much flows from that, right? That so much in terms of good childcare and child rearing, in terms of education, which is so vital to wellbeing. Um, there's so many things that flow from economic opportunity and relative equity and the the, as we know, the trend, particularly in our country, is toward greater and greater inequality, and that has tremendous long-term consequences for us as a society.

Chris Duffy: So what is one idea or book or movie, or a piece of music, what's something that has made you a better human?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: The Dalai Lama, what one thing he said has been really helpful to me, which is he said, my religion is kindness, and that what I've found is that if my default setting is the kinder response to whatever happens to me and to other people, that that makes me a better human.

Chris Duffy: How do you try and implement that in your, in your own life?

Dr. Robert Waldinger: So I press the pause button when I can. So something happens and somebody says something that offends me or hurts me and I wanna, I wanna retaliate right away, or I wanna send her an angry email. And what I have found is that when I can push that pause button.

When I can push that, do not send button on my angry email, uh, and take a, a while to sleep on it, to think about it, to think, okay, what would be the kind response? What would be the, the helpful response and the response that helps me stay more connected rather than disconnect that that's when I'm a better human.

Chris Duffy: Well, thank you so much for talking with us. Uh, this has been beautiful and I truly believe that the work that you are doing is, uh, important and meaningful in shaping the, the course of other people's lives. So thank you for what you're doing and thank you for the research that you've done

Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, and thank you for this work you're doing, which I think is gonna reach a lot of people.

Chris Duffy: That’s it for today’s episode! I’m your host Chris Duffy and this has been How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to our guest Dr. Robert Waldinger. On the TED side, this show is brought to you by Abhimanyu Das, who is beaming, Daniela Balarezo, who’s grinning ear-to-ear, Frederica Elizabeth Yosifov, who is simply delighted, Ann Powers, who’s pleased as punch, and Kara Newman, who is overjoyed.

From PRX productions, How to Be a Better Human is brought to you by the joyous Jocelyn Gonzales, the jubilant Pedro Rafael Rosado, the gleeful Claire Carlander, and the blissed out Sandra Lopez-Monsalve. Thanks for listening! Have a great week and, if you want to make us even happier, share this episode with someone you love.