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.
Interpretation
Isolation negatively impacts happiness and health, leading to a shorter life.
This quote by Robert J. Waldinger emphasizes the detrimental effects of loneliness on individuals, suggesting that a lack of social connections can result in decreased happiness, declining health, impaired cognitive functioning, and ultimately a shorter lifespan. It highlights the importance of fostering relationships and maintaining social ties for a healthier, more fulfilling life.
In practice
In a speech about mental health awareness, one might quote Waldinger to stress the importance of community.
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.
Most of what we know about human life we know from asking people to remember the past, and as we know, hindsight is anything but 20/20. We forget vast amounts of what happens to us in life, and sometimes memory is downright creative.
As I got older, I realised that people saw me as other things - sometimes Korean, sometimes Japanese, sometimes just Asian. When my family moved to a more affluent white neighbourhood, I started to see myself as 'other', this amorphous category. I didn't even know what 'not other' was, but I knew I wasn't it; I wasn't what was normal.
I'm not that complicated. My complications come out in my songs. All you need to do to be my friend is like me.
I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them--it was that promise.
She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power...I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me.
Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness.
He formed his sentences hesitantly and then threw them at me with such force that I felt as if I were receiving a present each time
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