Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans - 30 Lessons for Living

Certainly a new perspective, and brought up points I never thought about. It was also really nice to reaffirm some of my own self revelations.

I think it was a great read and every twenty something year old should read it, too.

Well written and confirms a lot of gut feelings, like, '' I have always thought that to be true." Wish I had read it when I was a teenager. Great mental roadmap to teach your children.
May you live many,many more years Dr. Pillemer.

What a brilliant concept, a crowd sourced manual for how to live life with input from the wisest people alive. I sincerely believe in the merit behind all 30 of these lessons, they are the recipe to the secret sauce of life. I am going to anonymously send this book to people I know who could use it the most.

As an elder myself it could agreed quite often with the experts quoted in this book. I have given a copy to a grandson who recently graduated from high school. Advice from someone with life experience (other than his relatives) may be more appreciated.

This is a great book about life and its pleasures and pitfalls as told by the true experts, mature adults aged 65 and over. Get anyone you can under 40 to read it! The rest of us must skip around as some matter may be irrelevant or already learned the hard way. I wish it had been available to me as a younger person, before I made some misjudgements. It is very values-centered in answering the question, "What is REALLY important in life?" Kudos to the author for giving a voice to the oft-ignored older adults among us.

I really found this book enjoyable and useful. It contained a lot of insights on living that I'd heard before, but it also contained numerous new insights. I found the book so poignant that I bought a second copy to give to my niece for her 21st birthday.

I recently read this book with my friend. We were so encouraged by this book.
The book gave us very practical advice.

" In my eighty-nine years, I've learned that happiness is a CHOICE - not a condition"

Among what might be considered "self help books" this one is very well done. Lots of practical information for people of all ages but especially for those considering parenthood and those experiencing all stages of parenthood, those considering a career or a career change...and those just generally looking for ideas regarding a happiness determinator. I could not get enough of this book.

The book is generally good with once exception. We have to keep in mind that when the people ( and especially the women) grew up it was a different generation. The women back then had fewer choices and many were stay at home wives.

I think that the advise given on working on your marriage is somewhat misleading for these reasons:

1. There was no viewpoint from someone who was divorced or happily living alone or with a significant other.
2. All the viewpoints were from people who had been married for a long time and had for whatever reason decided to stay married, so right there the opinions are going to be biased.
3. Back then divorce was not a socially or morally acceptable option.
4. There was a lot less equality for women and the choices were very limited. If you were a typical woman back then you were expected to be a homemaker. Without a career or your own money,divorce was not a very appealing choice.

Steeped in the wisdom of America's elders, 30 Lessons for Living has an undeniable power to influence the way we think and the choices we make. Karl Pillemer, the author and a professor of gerontology at Cornell, spent five years interviewing a diverse cross-section of over 1,000 senior members of our society to elicit their life advice. He reverently calls this group "the experts," perhaps for many reasons, but essentially because they have done something the rest of us haven't--they have lived into their eighties, nineties, and beyond, and are able to reflect on their nearly complete lifetimes with unique hindsight. [It's also no small thing that the experts have lived through everything their readers have... plus World War II and the Great Depression.]

As a liberal artist in my mid-thirties, I have to admit that while I was curious to see what the experts had to say, I was initially skeptical of how relevant I might find their advice to my own life. I suspected it might be outdated, preachy, too conservative for my taste, or too generic. On the contrary, I found the experts' words - as well as Pillemer's insightful synthesis - profound and often very moving. The book is a compelling, potent collection of guidance for how to live a meaningful life that's attuned to what really matters. The tone is never self-righteous. In fact, some of the most poignant advice stems from things the experts felt they got wrong, regrets they had, realizations in their final years about what was actually important. It's incredibly life-affirming to read about their successes as well as the lessons they learned through mistakes.

Pillemer organizes the book into six themes, including marriage, careers and happiness. Within each theme, he distills the experts' most recurrent comments into five pieces of advice. Each chapter ends with a "refrigerator list" of thematically organized advice that I know I will revisit in an ongoing way. One of the topics I found most interesting was "Lessons for a Lifetime of Parenting," for its discerning look at the impact higher life expectancy has had on adult relationships between parents and children. Our current elders are experiencing the upper end of this evolutionary fact without having had a clear model as children.

While the experts' individual anecdotes are affecting, the volume and reinforcement of similar messages over time underscore collective learning. It's startling to quantify that this book contains 80,000 years of life experience. The experts' words repeatedly got under my skin, and have already prompted shifts in my thinking and behavior. While change can often be easier said than done, I think it would be impossible to read this book without engaging in personal reflection, analysis, and consideration of some deeply challenging questions: Does your life reflect the advice of the experts? What can you do to live a life without regret? How do you want to look back on your life? Are you spending this finite time well? In one of my favorite lines, the author depicts the experts' perspective: "Looking at how younger people squander time, they are like members of a desert tribe staring in dismay at our profligate use of water." I welcomed the big-picture inquiry in the context of a culture increasingly fueled by instant gratification.

Pillemer strikes an impressive balance between showcasing the experts' anecdotes and weaving an accessible, often personal narrative. I appreciate the author's connections to his own life as a thinker, husband, father, and member of society doing as we all are - ageing.

Pillemer doesn't dwell on the ways in which our society neglects elders and their experiences, but the novelty of his study is a testament to our oversight and a reminder of the imminent loss of this valuable resource. On one level, this book provides advice for living; on another, it illustrates how simple and worthwhile it is to tap into such a goldmine. All it takes is an interest in asking questions, a willingness to listen, and an openness to our basic human connection despite pre-conceived notions of the gaps. In addition to the advice I absorbed through the lessons, I have an intensely renewed perspective on the "experts," not only those featured in the book, but those in my own life whose experiences and insights are more relatable than I imagined.

30 lessons for living is the most insightful book for getting it right. I thoroughly enjoyed the frankness of it's contents spoken by our elders or otherwise experts as Karl puts it. Would absolutely recommend without hesitation.

This book lacks an index - Any nonfiction book should have an index - I was able to use the online the store "look inside" search function to look up the location of terms that I felt were important to reference after reading my personal copy of this book -

Disappointing book. Nothing of depth, nothing you can't find for free in any self help article on the Internet: marry someone with the same values, make friends, take care of yourself... All the "experts" interviewed seemed to have ended up in a comfortable place with good friends or family who cared about them and enough money not to have to worry about paying for prescription medication or the high costs of assisted living. Was it because they lived well or were lucky? The book seemed to be written through the lenses of rose colored shades. I agree we should listen more to older family members and learn from them, but this book doesn't tell you much more than that.

The author (a social researcher) interviewed 1,000 old people, and recounts a subset of about 30 of the most common lessons and advice that he heard from the old people.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good book. It was well written, and the pace moved along--no tedious dead spots, so it was an easy read. It was fairly interesting to read the many short quotes, stories, and opinions of the old people (kind of like being able to read just the highlights from a lot of good conversations about life).

The content seemed reasonable to me, for what the book was supposed to be (a summary of 1,000 old people's opinions). The 30 major lessons are:

On Marriage
- marry someone a lot like yourself
- friendship is as important as romance
- don't keep score (50-50 thinking, etc)
- talk to each other
- commit to marriage itself, not just to your partner

On Career:
- choose for intrinsic rewards, not for financial ones
- keep looking for a job that makes you happy
- make the most of a bad job
- emotional intelligence trumps every other kind
- everyone needs autonomy (in the job)

On Parenting:
- it's all about time (with the kids)
- it's normal to have favorites, but never show it
- don't hit your kids
- avoid a rift at all costs
- take a lifelong view of relationships with kids

On Old Age:
- being old is much better than you think
- act like you'll need your body for 100 years
- don't worry about dying (accept that it is nature's way)
- stay connected (socially, to people and groups)
- plan ahead about where you will live as an old person **very good

On Avoiding Regrets:
- always be honest
- say yes to opportunities
- travel more
- choose a mate with extreme care
- say it now (to people while you and them are still alive)

On Living Like an Old Person (an "expert"):
- time is of the essence (ie, don't waste it)
- happiness is a choice, not a condition
- time spent worrying is time wasted
- think small (focus on small present things vs big future things)
- have faith (attend a spiritual or religious group)

As you can see for yourself, the lessons seem reasonable (as they generally did to me). However, I had a number of issues with the book, some minor and some major, as described below.

First, I didn't like the subtitle or the main premise of the book. "30 Lessons for Living - Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans." It seemed to me that there was no compelling evidence at all for the claim that "old people = wise people", or that "the people who were interviewed are/were the wisest Americans." But I wonder. What is wise? Does being "wise" (living the 30 lessons) have a big impact on your life? Is the 30L way the "best" way to live life?

I found the whole premise of the book unconvincing. I think the book would be on much firmer conceptual ground if the author limited himself to a book, title, and premise that simply said "I interviewed 1000 old people (where I picked the topic questions), and here's a summary of their most popular answers", instead of trying to make the (unconvincing) claims that old=wise, and 30L="wise living."

Second, I thought some of the lessons were pretty trite (find a job that you really like), sometimes banal (spend time with your kids; take care of your body), and sometimes unactionable (being old is better than you think). And to me, I was baffled by the complete lack of reference to the importance of education in the 30 lessons.

As a young person (in my 20's), I took every opportunity that I had to ask old people (age 50-90) questions similar to this book. I would say "You've lived through 1 or 2 world wars, the great depression, the dirty 30's, maybe raised a family, and have had many jobs from farm to city along the way, maybe even in different countries. What advice would you have for a young person roughly my age about life, and how to live it?" Perhaps I asked 20 or 50 "old" people this kind of question.

The most popular thing they said -- and I emphasize that (1) I heard this advice at least 30% of time, if not more) and (2) that they typically said this advice with EXACTLY the same wording -- was, "Get all the education that you can. It doesn't cost you anything to carry it around." Time after time I heard this phrase, from both male and female "old" people. I found the "carry it around" idea intriguing, as if that generation had a mindset about needing to move their possessions from place to place.

And yet, this book has no mention of the importance of education in it at all, whatsoever (for singles, parents, or their kids). Very strange. It makes me think the book (the interview questions) did not cover a few of the big issues in life (eg. education or money).

Third, the book is based on a huge selection/survivorship bias. Just because the old people were lucky enough to be alive to be interviewed doesn't make them wise at all. Their existence could easily be as much lucky genetics versus their 30L living skills. Luck and skill are very different things. The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing

And of course the old people's generation grew up in a very different world, so who is to say that their advice based on the past 80 years is even 100% relevant to the next 80 years of living, let alone being "the wisest" advice.

I think the book should have addressed the HUGE survivorship bias issue. For all we know, the best advice for living resided in the people who died earlier, or those who were not interviewed. Once again, I think the book title and premise overreaches the content. A better title would have been "I Interviewed 1000 old people (who were close to the grave) about life; here is what they said."

So I think the book has reasonable content, since I think most advice you hear from old people (like I did) is reasonable when considered in the context of their lives and their experiences. Often their advice is even applicable to other people's lives. But I would bet that if you could ask dead people for advice, they would have "equivalent" good advice too, so being old and interviewed doesn't automatically imply wise or better living to me...

I would recommend this book to my friends as a fairly light book of stories and advice from old people (but not as a deep guide to improving your life).

Instead, here are a few deeper books that I think do a much better job of giving advice on how to live a happier, more meaningful life and marriage. (Oddly enough, they don't talk much about "get all the education that you can; it doesn't cost you anything to carry it around" either. Go figure.)

On Life:
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
Optimal Functioning: A Positive Psychology Handbook
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It

On Marriage:
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
By John M. Gottman, Nan Silver: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert

the pages are cheap looking like someone hand tore them and put the book together. the pages seemed to be firm and in tact. as for the contents i can't comment as it was bought by me as a gift for a friend.

"IF YOU ARE UNHAPPY, TRY HARDER TO BE HAPPY CAUSE YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH TO COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS"

"PROCREATE FOR MEANING IN LIFE"

"DON'T MARRY THE WRONG PERSON"

"NO REGRETS"

"TURN TO RELIGION, ANY RELIGION, FOR MEANING IN LIFE AFTER THE PARENT PHASE IS COMPLETED"

This rating is for the condition the book showed up in. Very poor. The pages were all uneven and roughly cut. The pages look like they had been cut using a pair of beginners scissors made for kindergarten students. A new item should never arrive in such condition.

What are some of the major lessons drawn from this group of over one- thousand interviews with elderly Americans? There is advice about love and marriage . We are told it is wise to go slow in picking a mate, to choose a mate carefully, to look beyond appearances and to understand that Marriage must be a two- way proposition. One of the interviewees who talks about her second marriage says the key element was sharing values and a way of seeing the world.
In regard to raising children there is advice about the price which is paid for playing favorites, a price which may be exacted throughout a person's lifetime. Attention of course must be paid, and doing things with one's children, giving them Time is extremely important. There is the advice of treating each child as an individual and understanding them as an individual. Parents of grown- up children are advised to avoid interfering. Parents are recommended to be on the same page and show consistency in their messages to their children.
Advice about Work centers on the person's finding the thing they love to do, and devoting themselves to it wholeheartedly. One responder spoke about the importance of humility, willingness to learn from others. Young people are advised to take time and learn what their true purpose in work is.
In regard to Money there is much about the mistake of overvaluing accumulation of possessions. Comparisons are made to the Depression Era and people speak of the capacity to be happy with little and less. This connects well with another major message of the book. Happiness is according to the Advice given here not caused by a situation but made by an attitude. It is in many cases a decision and a choice. I qualify this because I myself know there to be extremely difficult and impossible situations where to speak of Happiness is a kind of mockery and absurdity. Importance is given to religious faith in general as a means of getting through hard times, and sustaining one's trust in the world. Advice is given about the mistake of worrying overmuch, of causing ourselves to be stressed. One respondent gives a very interesting report in which he describes the way taking care of physical health has given greater happiness over all.
Again this is a book filled with interesting reports and helpful suggestions. Among others I find echoing my own experience are those which stress the importance of maintaining a certain lightness and humor , of trying to help and give to others, of loving family.
As I have indicated there are many whose situation is so bad that they cannot take any of the advice given here. But I believe those who can read this book will be able to learn from the experience of others the kind of wisdom , that will make their lives better.
A wonderful and useful book indeed.