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.