What actually makes a good life, according to 85 years of data | Robert Waldinger
December 25, 2025
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16:56Now PlayingWhat actually makes a good life, according to 85 years of data | Robert Waldinger
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What 85 years of research says is the real key to happiness | Robert WaldingerFull Interview ►
Most of us think happiness is something you achieve: status, money, accomplishment. Robert Waldinger’s work asks a more unsettling question: what if happiness is less about what you get and more about who you keep?
Drawing on the longest study of adult life ever conducted, Waldinger traces human wellbeing across 8 decades, from the Great Depression to old age, following people from radically different starting points to see what endures.
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About Robert Waldinger:
Robert Waldinger, MD is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a practicing psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and a Zen teacher and practitioner.
For the last two decades, Waldinger has been the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. This study, conducted over more than 85 years, has analyzed the entire lives of 724 families to determine the activities, behaviors, and dynamics that enhance a person’s life-long well-being. Waldinger has dedicated his career to examining these elements and discovering what brings true fulfillment to human existence.
He is the author of several books, including his most recent, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
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