Dr. Karl Pillemer

You can't control exactly how your older parents treat you.

You can't control how long you're going to live, no matter how much you believe in body hacking.

You have to focus on these things

aspects of your life that are controllable and understand what the difference is and really take action on those things.

So I think it's this difference.

People get paralyzed by this kind of a despair about things that are going on, be it the political situation or something else.

The elders want you to believe that these things that you do in life to become happy and fulfilled and purposeful are the result much more of choices you can make

than they are of some abstract force governing outcomes.

One of the ways that you can look at it, if I can use a little more social science terminology, is that there's something called, and it's another big one, optimization with compensation.

Optimization with compensation.

Like I'm getting paid for something?

Well, almost.

But as you grow older...

People who age successfully learn to optimize what they have left and compensate for what they may have lost.

So rather than being upset as one of my interviewees, I can't climb this mountain anymore, but I can still go hiking.

I'm going to optimize what I have left.

Instead of reflecting and ruminating about all the losses, they argue that you take action on what you can control.

Can we touch on worry?

Of course.

Because I asked these very old people what their major regrets in life were.