The Legacy Project | Lessons for Living from the Wisest Americans

Time 2021-01-12 17:05:34

Web Name: The Legacy Project | Lessons for Living from the Wisest Americans

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Some of the most common New Year s resolutions have to do with money: saving more, making more, spending less, and so on. America s elders, however, urge you to take a broader view of money and what it means in your life. The experts on living in the Legacy Project have some excellent advice on the topic.The fantastic financial journalist Morgan Housel at Motley Fool wrote an excellent article (10 Money Lessons from Elderly Americans Who Have Seen It All), based on my book 30 Lessons for Living. Take a look it will help you think outside of the box about money issues over the coming year. I will share the first two lessons here.1. Young people obsess about making a lot of money. Older people wonder what they were thinking.When asked about their prescription for happiness at work, what wasn t mentioned spoke the loudest. And fancy statistics aren t necessary because the results are so clear.No one not a single person out of a thousand said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want.No one not a single person said it s important to be at least as wealthy as the people around you, and if you have more than they do it s real success.No one not a single person said you should choose your work based on your desired future earning power.2. Money is often at war with time. Balance them appropriately. The view from the end of the life span is straightforward: time well and enjoyably spent trumps money anytime. They know what it means to make a living, and they are not suggesting that we all become starving artists. But they also know firsthand that most people who decide on a profession because of the material rewards at some point look back and gasp, What have I done. In their view, we all need a salary to live on. But the experts concur that it s vastly preferable to take home less in your paycheck and enjoy what you are doing rather than live for the weekends and your three weeks (if you get that much) vacation a year. If doing what you love requires living with less, for the experts, that s a no-brainer If you are willing to accept a lower income level, you can gain enormous benefits by choosing part-time work as a lifestyle. Imagine if you suddenly had more leisure than work time. Some experts made this decision: living on much less money, renting rather than owning a house, and forgoing expensive consumer goods to pursue a job and a lifestyle they enjoyCheck out Morgan s article for the other eight tips! What are the best kinds of Christmas gifts we can give our partners? From my interviews with hundreds of long-married elders  (some happily married for a half century or more), I learned something new and different about the idea of a gift.Think about it: Christmas comes, and if you have a reasonably sensitive partner, you wind up with a gift of some kind. But did that experience really enhance your relationship? My guess is that, overall, the effect was neutral, because we expect this kind of treatment. (It would have a very negative effect if we did not receive a holiday’s gift, but getting one simply fulfills our expectations.)But what about these scenarios?You walk downstairs one morning and on the table are freshly baked blueberry muffins and a vase of daffodils from the garden.You’re supposed to pick up the kids after work, but your husband emails you saying he knows you’ve got a busy day so he’ll get them instead.You mention your interest in going to a concert you have read about—and your wife surprises you that weekend with a pair of tickets.According to the elders, gifts are expected on official occasions—and, yes, probably necessary. But what keeps the spark alive is the unexpected—and kind—gesture. In fact, they believe there is nothing more effective in keeping a relationship warm, supportive, and fun than making a habit of doing small, positive things.This lesson first hit me a number of years ago when I began my search for the life wisdom the oldest Americans. Antoinette, 81, told me about her marriage, which had been troubled in its early years. But through hard work, talking, and counseling, she and her husband of 55 years have attained a warm and loving relationship. When I asked her what she believed was the most important change she made, she thought for a few moments and said:There is one practical piece of advice I have given to my children. This is just one little jewel that I passed along to them. And that’s when you wake up in the morning, think, “What can I do to make his or her day just a little happier?” The idea is you need to turn toward each other and focus on the other person, even just for that five minutes when you first wake up. It’s going to make a big difference in your relationship.The elders strongly endorse the power of small and frequent positive actions in keeping the spark alive. They suggest we focus less on “big-ticket” items when we think of giving our mate something—often spending more than we can afford for items that may be quickly forgotten—and concentrate instead on giving small “gifts” throughout the week or the day. The build-up of these positive gestures can have a transformative impact on a marriage.Darren Freeman, 73, discovered that the key to happiness in his marriage is “being loving and caring and doing things for the other person.” But he immediately added:In my case it is being spontaneous. Going on trips by saying, “We are going to go out on a certain night.” Not tell them where you are going, and then you take them out to a certain place for dinner. Not necessarily overloading them with gifts during the Christmas time and so forth, but just throughout the years giving them little things, like if I notice that she has shown interest in something while we were shopping. Then going and buying that and bringing it home and saying, “Here, I got you a surprise today!”How can you make the strategy of doing small, positive actions work for you? The elders suggest three types of gestures that, when done frequently, have a major impact on the relationship—surprises, chores, and compliments.Surprise your partner. The power of small positive gestures is enhanced when they are unexpected. Jeanne Beauchamp, 72, and Rachel Strauss, 74, talked about the element of surprise in their long relationship. Jeanne told me:Well, I think it’s really important to do little things that are a surprise. Whether it’s giving your partner a card or going out to celebrate a special event like a promotion or a special anniversary. Just little surprises. Like buying flowers. Doing things spontaneously, like you know you’re planning to have dinner at home, and it’s almost 4:00 and instead you say, “Let’s go out for dinner. Let’s go somewhere special.”Do his or her chore. In many relationships, partners have firmly established responsibilities. It might be the separation of the inside/outside of the house domains, a schedule of who prepares dinner, who cares for a pet, or who picks up the kids. The elders say that one of the most effective small, positive actions is spontaneously taking over for your mate (especially if it’s an odious chore).Tracey James, 68, contrasted this approach to giving big gifts—and told me that freely-offered chore assistance wins hands down:Frequent smaller acts of kindness greatly trump large rare acts of kindness. Taking out the dog when it’s raining, going to the dry cleaner because I didn’t get there and not being angry about it—that really trumps a dozen roses. If you give me a dozen roses on Valentine’s Day, that’s one day out of the whole year. What am I supposed to think about in August when I’m not thinking about that? But if you have carried up the laundry or made the beds or emptied the dishwasher and I go to the dishwasher and you’ve done that, I can see that right away and I’m grateful and that’s part of my grateful day. That makes a big difference to me.Give compliments. Showing admiration and appreciation is another small positive action you should take. This point was brought home to me by some very regretful older people—the failure to give and receive positive feedback and compliments was one of the most common regrets they expressed about marriage. For those elders who made a habit of complimenting their spouses, though, the payoff was a warm atmosphere of mutual appreciation.In offering the advice to give small “gifts” as often as possible, the elders are right in line with the research. Studies of positive psychology underscore the importance of unexpected pleasant events as contributors to daily happiness.So try upping the number of small, positive things you do for your partner. According to the elders, it can create a cascade of positive interactions that will improve and enliven your marriage. And you don’t need to wait for Christmas. Holiday shopping will be different this year, as many people choose not to crowd stores and shopping centers in an effort to control the pandemic. Some families, as well, have been hit hard financially and may be trimming their gift-giving budgets. Here s an invaluable but inexpensive gift suggestion.Looking for a more meaningful gift this year? What about practical advice from the wisest Americans?One of my local heroes (yes, she lives near me) is the advice columnist Amy Dickinson (otherwise known as Ask Amy). She has come up with a great idea: That everyone on Christmas morning should get a special gift: A book placed on the end of their bed for when they wake up in the morning. Amy s point is one of the best presents we can give still comes in the form of an old-fashioned book.At the Legacy Project, we hope you might consider giving the special gift of elder wisdom this year. 30 Lessons for Living; Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans offers the advice of over 1000 elders on topics like marriage, work, child-rearing, and growing older. Reviewers have praised it, like Harold Kushner (author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People), who wrote: I can’t imagine anyone whose life will not be enriched by this book. And it s made it onto lists of top gift books.And if you know someone who is searching for a partner or looking to make a long-term relationship work, the Legacy Project also has a book for that! A great gift is 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage. They can learn from hundreds of people who have been happily married for 30, 40, 50 and more years.Christmas and Hanukkah are times when many of us see our older relatives and most of us think back to those with whom we celebrated the holiday in the past. The goal of these two books is to make sure their wisdom is not lost, and to pass it on to generations to come. In my new book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, I asked the advice of nearly 300 people who have lived through family rifts. Take a look at this new video to get an idea of the kinds of stories they tell. Many of the elders believe that when it comes to child-rearing, there s one thing your kids want more than anything else: your time. Paul, 80, when asked about the key to successful child-rearing fully endorsed the idea that time spent together is the most important thing. Ultimately, the lesson came from his daughter:Pay attention to your kids and read to them and be with them and help them grow up and I don’t think you do that from afar. I always read to my daughter when she was growing up and my parents always read to me. It’s a marvelous way to interact with them because they really appreciate it and they’ll tell you years later. That’s one of the things you do. Tragically, Paul s daughter became ill with cancer in her fifties, and after a long battle, died. She let him know how important the time spent together was: The other thing I remember, when my daughter was so ill, she said, “You know, the one thing I always appreciated from you and mom was that you attended my events, my high school games, my band performances, all those kinds of things.” You don’t get that when they’re in their teens. When they get to be about 30, they say that was good, that was good for me to have you there. She was in the marching band and we always went to those things. Well I’ll say this, following a marching band and a football team around – I think that’s what you do with your kids, you have to be with them. They’re a project you have to do. Hopefully you teach them some of the principles you believe in. One thing we often forget is that parents and children spend the majority of their lives together after the kids become adults! The elders in the Legacy Project had very useful advice for negotiating relationships between parents and their adult children. Two elders share their lessons for negotiating this very important, but sometimes touchy, relationship.Marv, 83, successfully raised two children. He points out that all the stress of child-rearing doesn’t end when they become adults:I think to a certain extent your offspring are always children. One always wants one’s children to be happy, and I suppose it’s the most disturbing thing for parents is when they can’t see happiness in their adult children’s lives or their children’s relationships or  in their marriages.You worry about aspects of their interactions with their partners and when you can see that the way they’re interacting is not productive. You worry about your children. When they’re adults, you worry about as much when they’re adults as when they were not adults.Of course, one outgrowth of this worry is the desire to give advice. Charles recommends that it it possible to advise children, but that the approach must be subtle.I think giving advice requires great subtlety. Well, your adult children sometimes ask you for advice, and sometimes it becomes clear that they are not looking for advice, they’re simply looking for understanding of their points of view. So I think it’s easy for children to misinterpret your real feelings about them, and feel more pressure than one thinks they should be feeling. It’s up to the parent to be subtle enough that you are able to refrain from expressing your attitudes, so that the child feels intruded upon, or that you are judging.Renata, 79, focused on accepting adult children as they are:With our kids now, there’s good feeling, good relationship. You keep your mouth shut. We made out mistakes, we let them make their mistakes. But I don’t give advice unless they really ask for it. . I feel I can say most anything I want, except I would not interfere with them, even though I see something that I think should be done differently, I wouldn’t express it.I think some parents expect too much of their kids. I think you have to accept what your kids are willing to do for you and not complain because they don’t do more for you. I think you just have to sort of give them freedom to live their lives knowing that they’re there if you need them and they know you’re there if they need you. So I think you have to stand back.Any advice for getting along with your adult children? What s worked for you? Many of the elders in the Legacy Project had one piece of advice about getting along with one s adult children: Don’t interfere in their lives, and wait for them to come to you for advice. But what when they do ask your opinion, what are some good ways to communicate?I have been conducting research on this issue, as part of a project to understand family estrangement and reconciliation. My new book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them provides additional guidance for overcoming problems with adult children.Tom, 82, has warm and supportive relationships with his three middle-aged sons. He recognizes that sometimes one is called upon to give advice to adult children; indeed, they ask for it. A problem, of course, is that parents are naturally invested in their children, and it is difficult for them to step outside of their own needs to objectively evaluate the choices their child must make.Tom’s advice: Take the “I” out of the conversation:Yeah, the big advice is always be open minded. Forget the business of ‘I’ centered and put the focus on ‘you’ centered. The son that you’re talking to and who has issues that he wants to discuss and forget the ‘I’, or at least put the I in the background so that at least he understands that he’s getting the benefit of your wisdom. You, who can govern how much ‘I’ to project, can inject information or guidance when it’s appropriate, not to dominate the conversation but to augment what the son wants to say. I think it’s a delicate balance of diplomacy among family members. I’ve not always done well.Grace, 75, found that her enjoyment of her children increased as they grew older and became adults; it was the “pay-off” for more difficult earlier years.I think by the time my kids were a little bit older and they were able to accept their parents for who they were, as I was with my mother, then it was great. I have enjoyed my children as adults so much, so, so much, and it’s something no one ever said to me. They always would say when the kids were young, “Oh, these are the wonderful years, these are the best years.” They were lovely years, but there is something just as lovely or more lovely when they are adults and you could talk to them as another human being. To know your children as adults is great.She shares her thoughts with her kids, but accepts that her advice may be turned aside.Well, there again, I think – don’t be too critical. In fact, don’t be critical at all. Accept them, accept what they’re doing. But I for example just wrote my daughter giving her some financial advice, and said, “I’m giving this to you with love not with criticism,” because she just does such stupid things financially. So – and she will read it, and maybe she’ll do it and maybe she won’t, but I’m perfectly willing to accept it that way. We d like to share the story of one of the true heroes we encountered in the Legacy Project. We heard many accounts of overcoming adversity and discrimination, but no interviewee was more inspiring than Hiram Mann (pictured here in World War II). Hiram had to fight to find the work he loved, overcoming racial prejudice along the way. The struggle and the rewards of his 90 years were encapsulated in his first words in our interview: “I was one of the original legendary Tuskegee Airmen.”In the early 1940s the military was almost completely segregated and the Air Force did not even allow Black people to enlist. But what if, as a young Black man, this was your chosen career, indeed your life s mission?Hiram’s experiences as part of this unique group allowed him to achieve his childhood dream, and so shaped his lessons for work and career.Back when I wanted to get into the military, before America got into the fighting in WWII, I wanted to fly an airplane. I had never been in an airplane in my life, though we’d seen them fly over. Well, I was a Depression-era child and pennies were very, very, tight to come by, but I would save my pennies in a wooden box and go to the hobby shop and try to make model airplanes, because I wanted to fly so badly.Sometime in early 1941, I wanted to know about getting flying instructions to fight for my country. The letter of rejection that I received said point-blank, no easy words to smooth it over, that there were no facilities to train Negroes to fly in any branch of the American military service. That ticked me off. I balled the letter up and threw it away. There were Blacks like me that wanted to fly. All over the United States there were others in similar situations. I went back to my job being a bellhop in Cleveland, Ohio.I applied again and I was very lucky. I passed and I continued to pass all of the examinations that I was given and I was in the 27th class that graduated.Hiram thus refused to give up despite setbacks and his own self-doubt that emerged from being raised in a segregated society. He needed a mix of courage, drive, patience, and forbearance to succeed in the 1940s military, where Black soldiers were unusual and Black officers a rare curiosity. Nevertheless, he achieved his dream of fighting for his country, putting his life at risk in the war in Europe:I was in combat. I’m a combat survivor. One of the questions a young person asked me was, “Were you afraid?” And I said, “Yes, I was afraid! When you let somebody get behind you who’s shooting at you and they’re trying to kill you and you know they are trying to kill you, you’d be afraid too if you had any sense.” So I will not lie. I told him, “Yes I was afraid.” I could see the bullets coming.Although others might have given up, Hiram refused to become discouraged by the racial environment in the Air Force. Instead, he used the military experience, despite its difficulties, to create a career path that would have been almost unimaginable to him as a child. He bacame one of the pioneers of desegregation in the military, sought after in his ninth decade as a speaker, and a living symbol of perseverance in the face of adversity.In the Legacy Project, Hiram shared some of his lessons for living – all good advice for young people today:On tolerance:I accept my fellow man as an individual. I try not to prejudge. I try to enter, whatever the situation may be, to get going to it with an open mind. That’s the way I approach most areas that I get into. Tolerate the other person..Tolerance – that goes a long wayOn perseverance:My mother had her basic teachings, she would not let me look down. She would tell me: “Hold your head up. No matter what, hold your head up.” And, my mother could not stand when I would say that I don’t have the background to do so and so and so. “What do you mean you don’t have the background?” She couldn’t stand that word background. On creating a legacy:My legacy—I don’t know just what it’s going to be. I haven’t written it yet. But I do hope that I’ve contributed something to mankind, individually as well as collectively. I know that the Black pilots were instrumental in doing away with segregation in the United States. We broke the ice. We were a cause for eliminating segregation because of our combat record. We, the 332nd fighter group that later was re-designated as the Tuskegee Airmen, became the most requested unit to fly escort duty for the bombers because of the protection we gave them. There’s my part in that. Nothing I did individually, but my contribution to that will be part of my legacy. I’m very proud of the life I’ve lived. I’m proud of having been a Black pilot and of my contribution to society.To learn more, here s a video of Hiram sharing his life lessons to young people. We have been asking older people for their advice on how we can cope with the current corona virus crisis. They have lived through other cataclysmic events, so we should take their suggestions very seriously. We ve opened a new site where older people can share their advice, or younger people can interview their elders and post their advice. Please join in!Ken, age 82, offers his advice to younger people:The COVID-19 pandemic is a highly unusual period in everyone’s life. It has seemingly turned life up-side-down. I have experienced a variety of crisis in my 82 years, such as World War II,  the polio epidemic, deadly hurricanes, floods, and other traumatic events. There was a common thread that runs through each of them. That is, the people who truly care put their shoulders to the grindstone and do whatever it takes to help others survive and carry on. By pitching in and following the prescribed protocols and mandates, we will be helping to mitigate the virus’ deadly threats. That’s the least we can do.We can do more if we live in a neighborhood or a community that needs help. Know what is happening to people’s lives as we work our way through this challenge. Start with one’s own family, one’s extended family, and one’s community. Families are making huge sacrifices and their concerns are not limited to health but to economics as well. It doesn’t matter if a person is 4 years old or 104 years old, there may be things that can be done to help one in need. Yes, be concerned about one’s own situation but focus on the greater good that could be done. Every day in life we are presented with a question. Am I contributing toward goodness or not? When we do contribute we can look back and not complain about the past but to have gratitude for how we were able to respond. Our gratitude can be for all the medical personnel and first responders who are on the front lines protecting us. We need not overlook all the essential workers and the legions of volunteers who devote   their time to make lives better for their communities. Yes, these are indeed challenging times but as all life on this amazing planet, we are all interconnected   and what we do to help others makes life not only have much meaning but makes us more human.One brief story. I live in the Adirondack Mountains but I grew up along the coast of Rhode Island. As a child during WW II, we had many more governmental restrictions than the current virus restrictions. Most  everything was rationed or totally not available. Many food items were no longer available. Most everyone had to walk anyplace. There was limited gas   for cars. No cars were being made anyway. Auto makers were only making tanks. We had to use ration stamps when purchasing things. We could purchase only one pair of shoes each year. We had total blackouts on many nights do to German subs waiting off-shore to sink American ships. Daily practice bombing runs took place over our home by the Naval Aviators. So what do little kids do in my community? We had our little wagons and went door to door asking for scrap metal of any kind and rags. The metal went into making military weapons and the rags were for the war effort at home where they were need in the factories. Everybody pitched in to defeat the enemy. There was great fear on the part of our community but we all stuck together and did whatever we could to survive. Neighbors helped neighbors. That was then and this is now. Neighbors still help neighbors. Who better to tell us how to survive and thrive in a crisis than elders who lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and even the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic? It s a pleasure to share these insights from the Cornell Chronicle.The COVID-19 pandemic has us asking difficult questions: How will we survive this? What are we willing to sacrifice? What comes next?In a moment that feels unprecedented, we can learn from the hard-won wisdom of a generation that weathered the most devastating events of the 20th century and lived to tell the tale.Karl Pillemer, the Hazel E. Reed Professor in the College of Human Ecology’s Department of Human Development, began a 10-year project interviewing older Americans in 2003, his research described in his 2012 book, “30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans.”Pillemer is also professor of gerontology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and senior associate dean for research and outreach in the College of Human Ecology. His major research interests include human development, with a special emphasis on family and social relationships in middle age and beyond.For his research, Pillemer started with the premise that older people have invaluable knowledge on how to live well through hard times. The average age of his interviewees was 77; the oldest was 108. Approximately 1,000 of them outlasted the Great Depression, 1,200 endured World War II and 60 survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.He asked them: Based on your experience of these world-shaking crises, what advice do you have for living through them?Take the long viewAlthough the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the nation, the very longevity of the oldest Americans is proof this crisis will end and rebuilding will begin. The elders can provide us with the long view, confirming in a literal sense that “this, too, shall pass.”“I met Holocaust survivors, refugees from many of the early 20th century’s other major conflicts, and people who lost everything in the Depression,” Pillemer said. “By the time I sat with them 40, 50, 60, or 70 years later, they had built comfortable, often successful and fulfilling lives. Their message was extraordinarily clear: Crises occur, societies change and, with resilience, we recover and move on.”Focusing on what your future can be a decade or more from now can provide an antidote to worry, the elders advise. This lesson is also a reminder: Present actions are the future stories of how we survived. What story do we want to tell?Be generous If you want to help yourself, the elders said, help others. Pillemer noted that their own poor families helped out even poorer ones during the Great Depression. They remember World War II as a time when communities came together and everyone joined hands and hearts to support one another at home.“Generously assisting other people to the extent that we can is a major way people are able to feel a sense of control,” Pillemer said. “Whether that was helping other people during the Great Depression or assisting the war effort during WWII. Generously helping others is a very good, self-interested strategy.”Don’t worry – prepare insteadThe oldest Americans have experience worrying about an event, going through the event and dealing with the fallout. According to Pillemer, they overwhelmingly agree: At best, worrying wastes time; at worst, it increases your suffering.“They found that the best antidote to gnawing worries was taking action,” Pillemer said. “Preparation for the worst doesn’t just make sense for your protection; it also makes you feel empowered. From their experience of crisis, they advise that conscious, rational planning greatly reduces free-floating worry.”Enjoy small daily pleasuresThe last lesson Pillemer shared was the importance of experiencing joy and savoring small daily pleasures. When people seek happiness, they often think about “big-ticket” items: buying a house, finding a partner, having a child, getting a new job, making more money. The elders tell us that a positive attitude in a crisis depends on thinking small.“A morning cup of coffee … a brightly colored bird feeding on the lawn, an unexpected letter from a friend, even a favorite song on the radio,” he said. “Paying special attention to these ‘microlevel’ events forms a fabric of happiness that lifts them up daily. They believe the same can be true for younger people as well.”Pillemer’s research highlights the wisdom of a disappearing generation, and the inestimable value of the stories and knowledge of the elders among us. And so, with no small amount of urgency, one final lesson taken from Pillemer’s lead: Ask your elders your questions while you can, and find comfort in their resilience.Written by E.C. Barrett who is a freelance writer, for the Cornell Chronicle.

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