The Key to happiness in our later years

Each of us has something like a “Happiness 401(k)” that we invest in when we are young, and that we get to enjoy when we are old. And just as financial planners advise their clients to engage in specific behaviors—make your saving automatic; think twice before buying that boat—we can all teach ourselves to do some very specific things at any age to make our last decades much, much happier.

According to a Harvard study, the single most important trait of happy-well elders is healthy relationships. As Robert Waldinger, who directs the study, told me in an email, “Well-being can be built—and the best building blocks are good, warm relationships.” 

Arthur C. Brooks, writing in The Atlantic