Dr. Karl Pillemer

It's such a pleasure to be here, Mel.

I want to share with you a lesson that many people learn too late.

One of the things older people have told me over and over is that life is incredibly short.

It passes by faster than you think it will.

There's a corollary to that which is even more important, and that's that happiness and fulfillment and purpose are not a destination that you will arrive at when conditions are somehow perfect.

Instead, happiness and fulfillment and purpose are the product of choices you make amidst the kind of circumstances in which you find yourself.

So it's a question of discerning what you can control and what you can't.

And what would you do if that was the wisdom you were going to base your life on?

Well, there are some things you really would do.

One of those is you would stop waiting for things like to travel or express love or find a more meaningful job.

You would make more conscious choices to be happy and to optimize your current situation.

You would focus on what's working rather than what's not.

You would savor small things throughout the course of the day.

And the elders told me all kinds of things, a colored bird on the lawn, a phone call from a friend, the silly headaches of the dog.

You would treat people.

moments and conversations and days with people you love as precious rather than routine that you're just walking through.

Those are all part of

of what you can do if you embrace this elder wisdom about life being extremely short and that life can't be deferred.

And so that's kind of where, I mean, I think that's really the essence of it.

These are sailors on the sea of time.