What I Learned from My 102-Year-Old Grandmother #WednesdayWithWyan

Yesterday I spent pretty much all day with my 88 year old grandparents. I pretend every time I see them that it's the last time. And I spent time asking them about their life, their regrets, the secret to living a long time.

What the greatest era that they remember was the greatest time of their life. What was the worst time?

And two things came up among all three of them.

Hey capitalists. It's time to crack open your favorite beverage. I like Zevia. This is Wednesday with Wyan on capitalism dot com.

I'm at a nursing home right now. I was just visiting my 102-year-old technically step grandmother, but I call her grandma. And yesterday I spent pretty much all day with my 88 year old grandparents. I pretend every time I see them that it's the last time. And I came home to Cleveland.

And was like, this really probably is the last time for at least one of the three.

And I spent time asking them about their life, their regrets, the secret to living a long time.

What the greatest era that they remember was the greatest time of their life. What was the worst time?

And two things came up among both of all three of them. Number one.

I asked them the secret to longevity and being happy when you're old. All three of them eat chocolate, candy, sugar. My grandma actually said the secret to health. My diet Klondike bars and chocolate bars. And my 102 year old grandmother is eating Snickers bars and Burger King. So it wasn't what they ate. Both of them had low expectations.

So they were always stress free. But they lived through wars, depressions.

All of them have lost everyone they know and love.

And they're still happy because they have very low expectations of what is required to be happy.

Man, that hit me in the face.

Because I think part of the reason why they're happy is because they've lived through such tragic times, depressions and wars. So your expectation meter is lower. This doesn't mean don't have high standards for yourself, but the bar that we set for ourselves to be happy is so high.

The other thing that came up was.

Community.

My grandparents have been together for 68 years, married for 68 years and they still hang out and play cards together. My 102 year old grandmother just lived into this, just moved into this nursing home. She moved in at 100 because she didn't want to be around a bunch of old people.

And up until that point she was still.

Social, active, and even here she participates in all the things that are going on.

And today we're so unhappy we're so lonely. We have such high expectations of what it requires to be happy. And I am going to go home and do an inventory of how I spend my time, how I spend my money, because none of them lived lavish lifestyles. All of them took life as it came.

They had slow, meaningful, but normal lives. And we all want to be. We, you and me, who have social media, all want to be better than one another.

So my average aged grandparents of 94 punched me in the face this week. The secret to happiness isn't getting more, it's.

Expecting less and being grateful for all of it and focusing on the one thing that matters, which is each other.

Have a great day. It.