What makes a good life?

Here is a great TED talk based on results of the Grant Study that began over 75 years ago and continues today. It looks at people's health and happiness over the course of their lives.


Here is the transcript along with questions to test your understanding and see if you can relate the ideas in the talk to your own life experiences and knowledge.
Robert Waldinger.docx

Please email or write down your answers!

Here are the questions for those of you who choose to just watch the video:





Questions

1) “Over 80 percent (of millennials) said that a major life goal for them was to get rich. And another 50 percent of those same young adults said that another major life goal was to become famous.”

Are you surprised by these survey results? What major life goals do you and your contemporaries have?

2) “For 75 years, we've tracked the lives of 724 men, year after year…”
Give 4 or more examples of things that happened to some of those men during the course of the study.

3) “The first (lesson of the study) is that social connections are really good for us, and that loneliness kills.”
According to Waldinger, what are the negative effects of loneliness on our health?

4) “The second big lesson…is…it's the quality of your close relationships that matters.”
What does Waldinger mean by poor quality and good quality relationships?

5) “The third big lesson…is that good relationships don't just protect our bodies, they protect our brains.”
What has the Grant study revealed about memory and relationships?

6) “What we'd really like is a quick fix, something we can get that'll make our lives good and keep them that way.”
Think of 3 or more such “quick fixes” for a healthy/happy life that you have heard about (that have nothing to do with building up good  relationships).

7) “What might leaning into relationships even look like?”
Robert Waldinger gives a few ideas – can you think of one or two practical ways to build up good relationships?