"Meaning" Trumps "Money" After 50

Earlier this year the MetLife Mature Market Institute teamed up with life coach and bestselling author Richard Lieder to study what it means to lead the “good life” after 50.  Researchers conducted interviews with 1,000 Americans aged 45 to 74 to test Lieder’s hypothesis that contentment in latter life is the result of:

Living in the Place You Belong,
With the People You Love,
Doing the Right Work,
On Purpose.

What did the study find?  Apparently the old adage “Money Can’t Buy Happiness” is right.  Regardless of age or financial status, people who considered themselves living the good life tended to focus most on the meaning-related, non-financial dimensions of life, even during today's tough economic times! 

Participants in the study were asked to rank the relative importance of 13 activities in leading the good life.  At the top of the list were “spending time with friends and family” (14.53%), “taking care of your physical self” (12.57%) and “enjoying personal interests” (12.38%).  Further down the list but still important were “ensuring you have enough income to last the rest of your life” (8.74%), “growing your assets” (7.63%) and “working to generate a satisfactory salary from a full- or part-time job” (6.33%).

Of those participants who stated they were living the good life, 84% reported living a life of purpose compared to only 33% of those not content with their lives. 

You can read “Discovering What Matters: Balancing Money, Medicine and Meaning” in its entirety by clicking here.

Are you more interested in how all of this relates to your own life?  There is a DVD and workbook that accompanies the study.  The workbook, “Discovering What Matters: Your Guide to the Good Life” can be found by clicking here.

You can receive the free DVD and a hardcopy of the workbook by writing to:

MetLife Mature Market Institute
57 Greens Farms Road
Westport, CT 06880

Contributed by Scott Martin.