The Most Important Life Lesson Older People Want Young Folks To Know

The Most Important Life Lesson Older People Want Young Folks To Know

There’s no better source of wisdom than people who have lived a long time. If you want to avoid regret at the end of your life, this one lesson about work is the one people over 70 were most adamant about — more than on lessons about relationships, children and happiness: Don’t stay in a job you dislike.

Photo by Vlad T

Eric Barker quotes from Karl Pillemer’s book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans:

You know those nightmares where you are shouting a warning but no sound comes out? Well, that’s the intensity with which the experts wanted to tell younger people that spending years in a job you dislike is a recipe for regret and a tragic mistake. There was no issue about which the experts were more adamant and forceful. Over and over they prefaced their comments with, “If there’s one thing I want your readers to know it’s . . .” From the vantage point of looking back over long experience, wasting around two thousand hours of irretrievable lifetime each year is pure idiocy.

For the book, Pillemer interviewed nearly 1500 people ages 70 to 100+.

It might not be easy to find a job that you love, but your future self will thank you for getting out of a soul-crushing one or trying to make it better.

What is the single most important life lesson older people feel young people need to know? [Barking Up the Wrong Tree]


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