With Purpose Success, part 17

More than thirty years later I still recall most of the names and faces of our initial fifteen volunteers, who met with us two times a week for several hours over a twelve-month span. We regularly assigned homework to our subjects-journal writing or certain physical exercises including yoga and the Chinese movement meditation tai chi-and then tried to assess which had been most helpful in turning back the aging clock. It was exciting work. There were no formulas. This was new research. We could let our instincts lead the way. Working with older men and women in the areas of personal growth and preventative health wasn't done back then, at least not on a noticeable scale.
Before long we could see that we were engaged in something special. If life is a learning process where each day we uncover one more meaningful tidbit and hope eventually to come to a full understanding of who we are and what our purpose is, then just imagine the advantage of old age. In this view, through time and experience we can become truly knowledgeable.
Now, imagine being able to coax decades of wisdom from the elderly and then to apply it to your life today. It was during the Sage Project that
I came to believe (and still do) that we can all be wise beyond our years if we simply take the time to listen to people who are in their twilight years and have climbed the proverbial mountain. I was awestruck by my elderly subjects' ability to reflect honestly on their good and bad experiences, and speak coherently about what they had learned from them.
Yet a disturbing theme emerged in our research, and that theme is the whole point of the story I'm now telling. In one assignment our fifteen initial subjects were asked to chart the highs and lows of their life on a single sheet of graph paper. It was up to them to decide what that meant.
There were no required inputs such as income, career advancement, mar riage, children, or social status. We simply wanted to know when and for how long they felt good about themselves. We asked our sages to draw a line across the center of a page, section it off by half decades, and then map a line above and below for all the years of their life, much as you might chart a stock price, monthly rainfall, or spotted owl sightings.
Above the line were periods when the sages enjoyed their life; below the line were periods when life didn't measure up to their expectations. They could draw way above the center line or way below it as a measure of how strongly they felt about a particular high or low point.
We had no idea what to expect and, frankly, worried that most of our sages would paint the rosiest possible picture of their life; by engaging in a little revisionist history they might end up drawing a chart that had them living consistently above the line. But that is not what we got. On the day of reckoning, when our group met to discuss the charts, we gathered in a circle on comfy pillows on the floor with a breathtaking view of the San Francisco Bay. Perhaps it was the relaxed setting that led to their candor. But we had no trouble pulling sincere and thoughtful comments from our subjects.