What 85 years of research says is the real key to happiness | Robert Waldinger

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.

0:00 The secret to happiness
2:12 The importance of relationships
3:30 How to study a life
5:19 Can we control our happiness?
6:17 Taking stock of connection
8:20 Childhood lessons and adult repair
11:22 Relationships and emotional regulation
14:41 The impacts of toxic relationships