The Atlantic Magazine ran a short article in April of 2013 on who lives longest based on who earned an obit in the NYT. 

It reported on a 2001 PubMed study that found Academy Award stars live longer than less famous actors. Not surprisingly lung cancer and cause due to drug use and risky behavior were prevalent in the entertainment industry. Beyond that,

Researchers in Sydney looked at the age and cause of death reported in 1,000 consecutive New York Times obituaries published from 2009 to 2011. “Success,” by their measure, was defined as having lived a life that merited an obit in the paper of record. Some of these people were considered to be both successful and famous, like those in performance and sports, and, to a lesser degree, writers and composers, while others — categorized as business/military/political or professional/academic/religious — were mostly just successful.  

RESULTS: People who were both successful and famous died earliest. The average age at death of performers and athletes, 77.2 years. (…)  Businesspeople and their ilk lived longest. In fact, their average age at death, 83 years, was higher than the national average for 2010 of 78.7 years. 

Philanthropists, academics, and doctors were more likely than others to die of “old age,” a diagnosis that occurred least often for performers, athletes, and creatives.

Incidentally, the gender distribution during this time period was 813 obits for men, 186 for women. (of course, but that’s for another blog post).

IMPLICATIONS: (…) (I)t would seem that fame isn’t necessarily associated with more health risks, but instead that people who are successful but not famous may be predisposed to being healthier. 

All very interesting, isn’t it? It tells us how many years’ people have lived, but it doesn’t tell us how satisfying their lives were—even if the obits regaled hundreds of activities and organizations in which the persons participated.

So I asked myself: since my goal is to live long, would I ever agree to live short if more alive? Or do I already have the option to live alive when living long, but I just miss the subtlety involved?

And what is “more alive,” anyway? I know for sure it’s not about being busy. Alain de Botton asks us to think about this in the excerpt from The Book of Life that follows.

Maureen Dowd, NYT Opinion Columnist
June 20, 2020

I never told my father I was proud of him.

I grew up in the ’60s, another era filled with tears and tear gas and violent clashes about race and class.

I didn’t want to be a hippie, but I certainly didn’t want to be a fascist. I was sheltered in my demure blue school uniform and saddle shoes, watching the world burn.

The National Guard slaughtering students at Kent State. The Chicago police billy-clubbing yippies at the ’68 Democratic convention. Soldiers in Vietnam getting denounced as “baby killers,” and radicals vowing to “barbecue some pork” and spill the blood of “pigs.”

I am posting an excerpt from John P. Weiss’s recent blog post “Have We Forgotten How to Take Care of One Another?”

Weiss was a California police officer and chief for 26 years prior to becoming an incredible artist, political cartoonist and writer.

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Have We Forgotten How to Take Care of One Another?

John Weiss, June 13, 2020

Excerpt:

Satisfy your soul

There’s a beautiful video featuring the late author, Dr. Maya Angelou. The video is titled, “Dr. Maya Angelou’s 3-Word Secret to Living Your Best Life.”

Dr. Angelou passed away in 2014 but her message seems especially relevant today.  

Dr. Angelou’s advice is “Just do right.” It’s a simple message that transcends politics, race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, and faith. It sounds simple, but it’s not. 

Each of us is a complex tangle of history, experiences, emotions, ideas, biases, dreams, and more. Even the best of us can be egocentric, inconsiderate, vain, unforgiving, and hurtful. It takes discipline, focus, education, and time to rise above these flaws.

Lori Lakin Hutcherson’s column on white privilege was featured in this week’s On Being post. Hutcherson is a Los Angeles native, Harvard graduate, film & television writer/producer, and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning website, goodblacknews.org.

As you will read, Hutcherson is not economically, intellectually or professionally destitute, which makes her point of view even more stark. I edited it for length.

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Jonathan Fields is a lawyer, author, and entrepreneur whose mission is to help organizations cultivate better workplace environments and create the cultural shifts needed in time of uncertainty.

I read his weekly column The Good Life Project and often listen to his podcast interviews. Below is an excerpt from this week’s post. I am offering it here because we often watch the news but don’t know how we might participate in making a difference. Jonathan has provided the resources.

This week Harvard Business Review posted a good article about what we should and shouldn’t consider as the country starts to reopen. When you find yourself heading toward unfettered movement, read it again. And remember: nobody really knows.

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Find Your Pragmatic Path through Radical Uncertainty

May 15, 2020 – Harvard Business Review
Howard Stevenson, Eugene B. Kogan, and Shirley Spence

These are times that none of us have seen before. Amid the radical uncertainty of the corona virus pandemic, fear has reared its ugly head medically, economically, financially, politically, and socially. We all would love to know when life will return to “normal” even if it is a different normal than what we have previously experienced. Many companies are running ads or issuing CEO messages that say: “We are in this together.” Perhaps it is more important for leaders to convey Jerry Seinfeld’s message: “I’m here for you.”

The point may seem trite but it reflects the importance of our ability to trust in our relationships. We each should do our best to keep our relationships reliable and predictable, to be someone on whom others can count during the incredible uncertainty and anxiety we all are experiencing.

To get through this, professionally and personally, here are a few suggestions for things we should do and some we shouldn’t do.

Big-picture observations

Gate A-4

By Naomi Shihab Nye

 

Wandering around the Albuquerque
Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I
heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4
understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”

 

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was
my own gate. I went there.

 

An older woman in full traditional
Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the
floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is
her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and
she did this.”