Let the festivities begin!

Got Game?

When we figured out that the perpetrator was Colonel Mustard who went after Mrs. Peacock with a Candlestick in the Conservatory we knew we were playing games hooked. Until then we had no “Clue.” After several games we got that putting hotels on the Boardwalk Square in Monopoly was going to cost anyone who landed on it a couple of the orange and yellow monopoly money. 

Ah! The days of sitting on the floor with our friends and playing Jacks, scraped hands aside, were so much a part of our “Wonder Years.” The days when getting up from the floor could be done with a quick sprint in the absence of a knee jerk and holding onto something to level ourselves. You with me? 

So many of the old adages are now living at our front door. Cliches that we never got, couldn’t internalize or just weren’t ready for have now come into play with regularity. Fortuitously, they serve as the bettor at our Mah-jongg table and the leathered decorated card turner at our Canasta games. 

More forgiving and grateful with less of a focus on verbalizing differences seems to be our new posture. We sit down and the magic occurs. First game out we adjust our seat, call on our strategy and throw the dice or deal the cards. We leave so much more to chance. No more rebuffing what is, just fact and acceptance feel like the right paths to take. We flinch at the first interference in our game of Life–and in turn almost welcome it. A phone call from a friend’s daughter sharing the joy over their daughter’s ballet recital, is typical. An interruption because the dentist needed to move our appointment up a half an hour, or the bell ringing when the handyman comes to fix the window that is stuck, is how it goes. We pool our woes and share our joys. We take home the name of a good dermatologist and flatter one another when we admire a new pair of very cool boots. We are the lucky ones who have turned happenstance into “sheer” delight.

My parents had an activity with their weekly Canasta group called “Coffee and…” I am now getting that the “and” was so much more than chocolate bridge mix or babka. Yes mama, I’m counting sevens and aces, remembering to take the Talon and looking three cards back not to throw the deck.

I love our “and.” When I was younger and had pieces of chicken, I would eat the wings last. I savored the best for then. I now sit down to our chicken lunch and go for the wings first. I rush thru my broccoli and cheddar omelette just to get the cards in my hands. I know that the real reason I enjoy our games so, is because they recapitulate my parents activity of continuity. Well here’s to so many more days of Mah-Jongg, Canasta “And.”

I spent a day with the director of the longest study on happiness.

5 learnings (that may change your life):

Dr. Robert Waldinger is the fourth director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has studied the lives of its 700+ original participants and their 1,300+ direct descendants for over 85 years.

It is considered the longest-running longitudinal study on adult life, health, and happiness.

Here are 5 insights from our conversation:

1. Relationship Satisfaction Impacts Health

I asked Dr. Waldinger about the most shocking finding of the Harvard Study.

His response:”Relationship satisfaction at age 50 was the single greatest predictor of physical health at age 80.”

Relationship satisfaction was a more effective predictor of health at age 80 than cholesterol, blood pressure, or any other health marker tracked by the study.

The strength and quality of your relationships has a direct and powerful impact on your physical health as you age.

2. Loneliness Has Real Consequences (& It’s More Prevalent Than Ever)

Loneliness is on the rise.

60% of adults say they don’t feel very connected to others. The amount of time teenagers are spending in person with their friends is down 70% over the last two decades.

And unfortunately, loneliness has consequences.

A number of studies—including Dr. Waldinger’s Harvard Study—have found that the health impact of loneliness is quite dire.

Chronic loneliness has been found to increase dementia risk by up to 50%.

Lack of social connection is worse for your health than tobacco and alcohol abuse, obesity, and more.

3. Make “Social Fitness” a Priority

Dr. Waldinger says our social health should be thought of in the same manner as our physical health—that it’s the result of tiny daily actions that compound over long periods of time.

Make your social health a part of your daily routines: When you think something nice about someone, let them know right then, tell your partner one thing you appreciate about them every single day, reach out to that friend and catch up, plan that dinner.

Your daily social health actions compound. Build your Social Fitness.

4. Check Your Energy to Improve Your Life

Check your energy level after spending time with someone. Do you feel energized or drained?

Spend more time with your energy creators and less time with your energy drainers. Your life will improve.

5. Ambivalent Relationships are the Most Toxic

Ambivalent relationships—those that are sometimes supportive and sometimes demeaning—are actually worse for your health than purely demeaning relationships.

A variety of studies on humans and animals have shown that ambivalent relationships have sharper negative health consequences than purely toxic ones.

Audit your relationships. It may be time to reduce the energy given to these people.

This is just for the moment when we take our eyes off the screen, pick our head up from the daily News and wipe the fear and horror off our faces.

Then one day the sky fell down.
No chicken little warning- the house fell on the witches legs and just like that the emperor had no clothes.

Cinderella lost more than her slipper and the three blind mice could no longer run. Mother Goose stopped singing nursery rhymes and stood by as prisoners exercised around the “mulberry bush.” There were no rainbows and we waited for happier days to be here again-hit it Barbra with an A.

Severus Snape knew that “the dark arts are varied, ever changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and more clever than before.”

Even though Tom (Tom and Jerry) was the antagonist, all of us felt for Tom. “After all what good is a cat if he can’t get the better of a rat.” From our own little corner in our own little chair- uh, oh! we spied with our little eye a black cat crossing our path.

And to quote Elmer Fudd in his garden of evil- “Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits.” Only in that case, the hunter gets hunted always.

Then we ran into Mary Poppins who offered us a spoon full of sugar. It helped the medicine go down. We began to believe again and just like we know pruning flowers helps new ones grow bigger and brighter, alas the Prince of Tides helped our ship sail in.

We turned the beat around, stopped playing victim and got behind the wheel to claim our power back.

If you believe in magic, follow toto down the yellow brick road and know that somewhere between the curtain and the wizard is a place called Home.