12 Quotes by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

...what predicts fulfillment at the end of life?..."Engagement," he said instantly. "Maintaining engagement with the world."..."When we think about older people who are vital, it's often because they're still thinking and the world and the future. They're keeping up with current events. They're excited to tell you about the book they've read. They're thrilled about the way the garden is coming in this year. They're engaged."Robert Waldinger with BBH

The people who seem happiest are the people who feel like they're able to express aspects of themselves that feel vital to them, that make them feel alive. It's not any particular path you have to take, it's being able to express the core of who you are.Robert Waldinger (Harvard) to Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Your thoughts and attitudes today chart your destiny tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Our brains resist change, they rail against it, our amygdala will always want the safe bet. But are the obstacles truly insurmountable? Is it a brick wall? Or is it a sliding door, which, once you decide to approach it, begins to swish open? Because even though our brains prefer safety in the short run, in the long run they crave meaning, challenge, and novelty.

We watch our bodies and our brains slow down as younger bodies and brains zip past us, and we just accept it, not realizing there is a whole world offering to sharpen and improve us. We simply need to look for it.

At the bottom of every dilemma, he says, is fear, and the brain always prefers the bird in the hand to venturing into the bush, even if you are clutching a scrawny black crow.

I came to define God by His handiwork: a craftsman who builds the hope of eternity into our genes, a master electrician and chemist who outfits our brains to access another dimension, a guru who rewards our spiritual efforts by allowing us to feel united with all things, an intelligence that pervades every atom and every nanosecond, all time and space, in the throes of death, or the ecstasy of life.

Choose where to invest your energy, and do so intentionally, because the clearest path to a robust midlife is purposeful engagement.

Lonely people were not faking their symptoms. Their own bodies were reacting to loneliness at a cellular level, trying to nudge them to make friends and get back into the warm, safe center of the herd.