Our kind of research might be one of the first projects to go. Our work is not urgent; it's not the cure for cancer or Alzheimer's. But we have a way of understanding human life that you can't get anywhere else, and it lays the foundation for important, actionable things.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the value of understanding human life through research, even if it's not immediately urgent or critical.
In this quote, Robert J. Waldinger reflects on the significance of research that explores the intricacies of human life, acknowledging that while it may not seem urgent compared to pressing medical breakthroughs, it provides vital insights that can lead to meaningful applications in understanding and improving human experience. He underscores the importance of foundational research in shaping future advancements.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a conference on personal development emphasizing the significance of foundational research.
Being human means there's a wall-builder in each of us. Our minds naturally divide the world into me and not-me, us and them. For thousands of years, our sages have taught that we're all one, yet we still divide wherever we look.
It's the quality of your relationships that matters.
The good life is built with good relationships.
It's not just the number of friends you have, and it's not whether or not you're in a committed relationship. It's the quality of your close relationships that matters.
It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they're physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.
People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner, and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely.
it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance
Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. And dreams are forever.
There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five.
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
Looking over the country with those sunken eyes as if the world out there had been altered or made suspect by what he'd seen of it elsewhere. As if he might never see it right again. Or worse did see it right at last. See it as it had always been, would forever be.
I would say you might encounter many defeats but you must never be defeated, ever. In fact, it might even be necessary to confront defeat. It might be necessary, to get over it, all the way through it, and go on. I would teach her to laugh a lot. Laugh a lot at the - and the silliest things and be very, very serious. I'd teach her to love life, I can bet you that.
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