Member-only story

💫 Sienna Clarke
4 min readOct 28, 2019

What Makes a Good Life?

I recently came across a long term study that began back in 1938. It was done by Dr. Arlie Bock, a Harvard physician, and it began with 268 men who were sophomores at Harvard between 1939 and 1944.

The goal was to study successful and ‘normal’ men, to see what makes a good life and maybe even figure out a general recipe for success that the rest of us could aspire to.

The men agreed to a wide range of interviews, questionnaires, physicals, and extensive physiological measurements, which have formed the basis of the information collected.

But unfortunately, like most long-term studies, enthusiasm disappeared after the initial burst of excitement. The study lost its funding after about a decade, and by the mid-1950s, it was all but completely disbanded.

A small group of researchers kept the study alive, at least sending questionnaires to the participants every couple of years. Funding came from a variety of groups, ranging from the Rockefeller Foundation to the cigarette company Philip Morris.

Then two things happened that changed the study’s outlook. First, as the men reached middle age in the 1960s, many found varying success. Four of the men ran for U.S. Senate, one became president, another became a best-selling author.

Create an account to read the full story.

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Or, continue in mobile web

Already have an account? Sign in

💫 Sienna Clarke
💫 Sienna Clarke

Written by 💫 Sienna Clarke

Single mom to 3 grown ups. Growing into my writing career and enjoying the progress. I write mostly about self discovery, self improvement and relationships.

No responses yet

Write a response