| Proverbs 17:17 – “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” |
What makes for a good life?
It depends on your age.
Younger–money, promotions, things.
Older–it changes.
I remember the comedian George Burns commenting, “You know when you are getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.”
There was a time, I did not worry too much about the question of “How do you live longer?” But life got my attention.
We are trying to understand the question of what makes for a quality life, especially after you grow older.
In 1938, a millionaire named Grant (who owned a department store from my youth called Grant’s) gave Harvard a gift. It was to study men over the years.
They recruited two groups of men.
Some were the upper crust, one of which was John F. Kennedy.
Others grew up in the Boston slums, living in poverty during the Depression.
Every year for the last 75 years, they have contacted as many men as were still alive.
But they kept doing medical exams and submitting lifestyle surveys.
But after so many years of watching men grow from their 20s to their 90s, they have discovered something.
It wasn’t the money or the success. Many of the most affluent became alcoholics or committed suicide.
What they found was simple, almost too simple. The people who live the longest have the most solid relationships with other people.
We have kind of confirmed that on a personal level in the last year when the pandemic isolated people. It was hard to continue to live for many, especially senior citizens and those in care centers.
Men who retired and made new friends to replace work friends continued to live a full life.
Life, they have learned, is how much love you show to others and how much others show to you. That is the true definition of “relationship.”
The wise man Solomon knew of the value of the people in our lives.
And he knew we and acquaintances.
But some…are more valuable.
He says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17)
Or as Mark Twain observed, “There isn’t time— so brief is life— for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving— & but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
So, here is to many friends and a long life.
–Robert G. Taylor
robertgtaylor.com
