Professor Bob Waldinger

So we found that the Harvard group, the privileged group, was no happier on average than the inner city group, that there were happy people in both groups and there were unhappy people in both groups.

Privilege and money were not the ticket to happiness.

However...

The Harvard group lived on average 10 years longer than the inner city group.

And that has to do with privilege and access to healthcare and education.

They probably had access to much better healthcare.

Well, the guy who in the book we call Leo, we changed all the names in the book, but the stories are absolutely real.

And Leo was a man who, actually, my predecessor thought Leo was the most boring man in the study when he interviewed him, you know, like 30 years ago, because he had such a stable life.

He was a high school teacher.

And that's all he did his whole life.

And he had a marriage and kids and grandkids.

But it turned out he was a high school teacher who loved his students.

He loved his colleagues, had a really warm marriage, was such a good dad to his three daughters.

And

than love teaching his grandchildren how to sail his little sailboat that he built, right?

So he wasn't rich.

He wasn't famous.

He was just living his life, doing something he cared about and loved the people he was with.

So that's our happiest man in the study.

He's by far the happiest man.