Excerpt: John Leland spent years with some of the oldest old in America and wrote a book on his findings. Read our quotes on aging from his book here!
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Introduction: Advice From The Oldest Old
“Old age is the last thing we’ll ever do, and it might teach us about how to live now.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 23)
In Happiness Is a Choice You Make, award winning journalist John Leland set out on behalf of the New York Times to meet some of America’s oldest old in an effort to learn more about their living situations, challenges, and quality of life.
Initially, Leland expected to hear stories of loneliness and grieve and anticipated meeting people whose quality of life was relatively poor from the deterioration of their bodies and minds that comes naturally with aging.
What Leland found, however, was much less heavy and sad than he expected.
The elders—the oldest old who Leland reported on—approached life with a level of lightness and contentment that upended many of the traditional notions that society had about the elderly and made Leland reevaluate and redefine (and write a book about) many of the beliefs he had on aging, happiness, present-mindedness, and dying.
What was most notable, was that in spite of the incredibly real challenges that each of the elders faced (not the least of which being death), they all seemed to have adapted in ways that allowed them to carry on with hope and in good spirit. And the lessons that Leland gathered together and shared in his book are incredibly insightful and might very well help you and I live better today.
After all, what better way to prepare for living, than by taking notes from those who have lived the most?
Below, you will find 23 of our favorite quotes on aging, living, and dying from Happiness is a Choice You Make and you will get to dig a little deeper into the minds of the elders.
As you read through these quotes, remember to pause and reflect on any insights that catch your attention and make you nod or react. These are the moments of awakening that need attention and time to fully embrace. We hope they find you well and that they lead you forward in good spirit and hope.
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The List: 23 Quotes on Aging, Living, and Dying from Happiness Is a Choice You Make
“Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”
David Bowie via Happiness is a Choice You Make
“A starting point for wisdom at any age might be to accept that you’re going to die—really accept it—and to feel more contented by the limits, not less. Modern medicine encourages us to consider death a test we can win or lose, something presided over by experts in white coats. But the elders offered a wiser perspective. None of us will get out of here alive, so we might as well live while we can.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 45)
“Happiness to me is what’s happening now. Not the next world; it’s not the dance you’re going to tonight. If you’re not happy at the present time, then you’re not happy. Some people say, I get that new fur coat for the winter, or get myself a new automobile, I’ll be happy then. But you don’t know what’s going to happen by that time. Right now are you happy? Like me. I have health problems, but it’s been going on a long time, so it’s secondary.”
Fred Jones, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 29)
“Some people are grateful seemingly as their default state, even when no one’s looking. Their lives aren’t necessarily better than other people’s, but they find more reasons to give thanks for their small rewards. Fred Jones was one of those people. Giving thanks made him happy, which made him grateful, which made him happy.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 119)
“Fred, who had more hardships than most people but was highly grateful, wanted to live to 110; my mother, who had more advantages than most people, saw no point in living. Advantages alone—even awareness of them—weren’t enough, perhaps because they can be lost. Gratitude, on the other hand, was an affirmation that the world gave you things, and might continue to do so.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 122)
“Thanks are the highest form of thought, and… gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
G. K. Chesterton, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 118)
“Too often we think that if only we undo the impediments to our happiness, we can be truly happy. But there are always more impediments, more reasons not to be happy now. Helen chose instead to embrace the life she had. She didn’t resent her daughter’s meddling or feel sorry for herself because she wasn’t getting married; she didn’t magnify her unmet desires by treating them as a punishment. They were life, her life. Impediments are the circumstances in which we find happiness.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 178)
“How to be happy? Here was a start. Accept whatever kindnesses people offer you, and repay with what you can. Let a friend buy you lunch, then do her a solid in return. You’ll benefit from the favors you receive, but even more from the ones you perform. Don’t begrudge the people who need you; thank them for letting you help them. Give up the obsession with self-reliance; it’s a myth, anyway. None of these comes naturally to me, and even as I write them now, they seem too pat. But in Helen and Howie I saw them in action, again and again, and here is what I saw: they worked. They weren’t genius; they were wisdom.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 62)
Read more on the gift of receiving and how to better accept gifts ↗
“‘Happy in spite of’ entails a choice to be happy; it acknowledges problems but doesn’t put them in the way of contentment. ‘Happy if only’ pins happiness on outside circumstances: if only I had more money, less pain, a nicer spouse or house, I’d be happy as a clam. ‘Happy if only’ feeds millions of dollars into lotteries or impulse purchases, which provide nothing of the sort. Ping, by contrast, didn’t expect her hardships to pass, so didn’t pin her happiness on their doing so. When she was younger, she said, she thought moving to America would solve her problems; she found that it just replaced them with others. The lesson was to find happiness not in the absence of pain and loss, but in their acceptance.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 135)
“Troubles are always with us, and getting rid of this one or that won’t make us happy; it’ll just move another hardship to the head of the class.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 134)
“Problems [are] only problems if you [think] about them that way. Otherwise they [are] life—and yours for the living.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 113)
“If you believe you are in control of your life, steering it in a course of your choosing, then old age is an affront, because it is a destination you didn’t choose. But if you think of life instead as an improvisation in response to the stream of events coming at you—that is, a response to the world as it is—then old age is more another chapter in a long-running story. The events are different, but they’re always different, and always some seem too much to bear.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 114)
“Everything is moving into the future, but the future doesn’t exist. It’s what we create. Our responsibility for the present moment, that’s morality. The future of humanity or the family or whatever depends on what you do this moment. If you want the next moment where everything will be better, then you’d better do this moment right.”
Jonas Mekas, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 32)
I would say, that I am applying the ‘butterfly wing’ theory to my everyday life. It’s a kind of moral dictum, moral responsibility to keep in mind that whatever I do this second affects what the next second will be. So I try not to do anything negative, which is my best insurance that the world will be better next second, or at least not worse. But of course, my positive action may be undermined by 100 negative actions of others and so it may mean nothing. But I still have to follow that dictum. You can call it optimism.”
Jonas Mekas, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 212)
“Whether we’re twenty-five or eighty-five, we can choose to live in the things that warm us—in love, humor, compassion, empathy, a supportive arm—not because they make life easy, but because they do the most for us when life is hard.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 194)
“The elders were all proof that you could live a full and fulfilling life even when the weather turned stormy. So why worry about the clouds in the forecast? Live your life, put on a show, take a chance, give thanks for your failures along with your successes—they’re two sides of the same coin. If we’re living longer, maybe we have an obligation to live better: wiser, kinder, more grateful and forgiving, less vengeful and covetous. All those things make life better for everyone, but especially the person trying to live by them. Even, I would add, when we fail in our attempts to get there.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 231)
“Contentment had been there for the grasping, if only I had recognized it. Probably it’s there for you. The elders would tell you to grab it while you can, not agitate for something better. They don’t have time for delusions, including the delusion that you have time. They’re too busy loving like there’s no tomorrow, because for any of us, there might not be.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 85)
“Fulfillment need not be what’s just around the corner. In the end, wisdom lies in finding it in the imperfect now.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 178)
Related: 10 Empowering Brené Brown Quotes from The Gifts of Imperfection ↗
“This may be the one-sentence essence of what I learned in my year among the oldest old: to shut down the noise and fears and desires that buffet our days and think about how amazing, really amazing, life is. Could I do this? Before the year began, my answer would have been no, that the noise and fears and desires were life itself. But as the year went along I found myself shifting my focus to the quiet beneath the noise—how unlikely the moment was, how each sliver contained a gift that might never return. Maybe this was what it meant to think like an old person. I couldn’t live wholly in the moment, because I had a future to think about, but if I had learned anything, it was to live as if this future were finite, and the present all the more wondrous as a result.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 210)
“So often we measure the day by what we do with it—cure cancer or surf in Maui or meet with our child’s math teacher—and overlook what is truly miraculous, which is the arrival of another day. Enjoy it or not. The day doesn’t care, but if you miss it, it won’t be back again.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 216)
“The challenge, then, is to find a purpose in life that will sustain you through the latter years. Kickboxing might not be a great choice, but painting, political activity, time with family, or passing along your skills to the next generation can be a reason for living at any age. Practice law, feed the hungry, teach piano, harass your congressman, tell your story. It’s your purpose in life: make it a passion, not a hobby.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 206)
“It takes seventy or eighty or ninety years to learn the value of another sunrise or a visit from a surly grandchild—to appreciate how amazing, really amazing, life is. They only seem paltry because we haven’t lived long enough to see their value, or survived enough losses to know how surmountable most losses are. Simple gifts can be as rewarding as more elaborate ones, and there’s no rule that a life of daily mah-jongg in a fluorescent-lit community room is less fulfilling than one of high-stakes baccarat in Monte Carlo.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 215)
Bonus: Advice when caring for a dependent person.
“Receiving is much harder than giving, but this fact is seldom recognized in mainstream American society. Dependent people are often deprived of chances to give, finding that they must endure a state of almost constant relinquishment and passivity. Consequently, the person receiving help accumulates a debt to the other and must bear the weight of feeling beholden day in and day out. There are few means through which the person can pay back a caregiver for rides to the doctor, help with medical bill paperwork, handling loads of laundry, and check-up telephone calls—the list of favors owed can be immense. The dependent person may yearn for something useful to do, only to be admonished, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything.’”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 188)
Bonus: Advice when trying to live a life of purpose.
“If you want close, supportive relationships with friends and family members when you’re eighty-five, trace a series of moves leading up to that, all the way back to the present time. Pleasant, right? That’s the universe telling you to spend more time with people you care about. If you want a life of purpose, don’t you think you’d better start finding your purpose now? You may not get there by working more hours, coming home late, putting off time with your friends and family. Maybe you want a different job, a long talk with your son, a move to a different part of the country. Maybe the answer is ending a marriage in which you’re no longer helping each other grow. I never said this was going to be easy.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Pages 16-17)
Bonus: Advice to not betray the beautiful people who came before.
“I choose art and beauty, vague as those terms are, against ugliness and horrors in which we live today. For somebody to look at a flower or listen to music does something to one, has a positive effect, and being surrounded by ugliness and horror does something negative. So I feel my duty not to betray those poets, scientists, saints, singers, troubadours of the past centuries who did everything that humanity would become more beautiful.”
Jonas Mekas, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 45)
Picture Quotes on Aging To Share:
If you enjoyed these quotes on Aging, Living, and Dying from Happiness is a Choice You Make then you should definitely check out John Leland’s book in full. It comes highly recommended:
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