There’s an idea in our culture that’s so wrong: that life is over when you get to be a certain age. But your golden years, like mine, can be the best years of your life.
My life has demanded a certain amount of courage. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922, shortly after the start of Prohibition. My father, who was a bootlegger, got into a turf war with the mafia, and he was killed in our driveway when I was just two years old.
I got married a month after my 19th birthday and went straight from my mother’s home to my husband’s. Three kids and 25 years later, I left that unhappy marriage and loved being out on my own.
In my 40s, I had my first experience of supporting myself and being myself. I started writing for newspapers and later, after I remarried, had the luxury of writing novels full time.
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Today, as a 101-year-old in Austin, I’m living the kind of life I feel fortunate to have. I still do things I love — like publishing my ninth book earlier this year, spending time with people I love, and reading. It’s a quieter life than I had as a younger woman, but these years are good ones. I wish more people my age knew that.
Here are eight lessons I’ve learned that have helped me live a long, happy life:
1. Don’t ever believe you’re ‘done’
Some cultural ideas are good, but many are wrong. People give up on their lives much too early.
When your mind focuses on what the culture teaches us — that we’re done when we get past a certain age — it gets into our sense of self. If our sense of self is to be alone and sad and useless when we are 70, 80, 90, whatever, we believe it. And that’s really dangerous.
These years are good ones. I wish more people my age knew that.
People have gifts that they may not know they have, and it may take a lifetime to find them.
2. Talk to friends of all ages
My friends are a wonderful source of wisdom, energy and authenticity.
I have a few friends that are two and three generations younger. I’ve learned from them, and I think they’ve learned from me. Each decade teaches us something else.
There’s a huge difference between being 30 or 40 and being 90 or 100. And yet, when we come together, it can be fabulous because we all have much to teach each other. It gives us another way to think about things.
When I get together with my friends, we mostly talk. Talk is exhilarating when it’s good.
3. Let little things make your day
It’s not the top of the mountain that makes us happy. It’s the small pleasures.
Our culture often tells us that if you want to be successful, it’s a big thing. It’s a big effort. It’s about big returns. But that doesn’t work. I don’t even know if the mountaintop exists, but small pleasures do exist, and they can be dynamite.
We have to understand ourselves so that we can be authentic and find the little things that make us happy. For me, one is reading. Another is being with people I care deeply about — which can be family or friends. It’s a phone call, a visit, an idea, a worry shared.
4. Have the courage to be authentic
Courage is probably, for me, the bottom line. It takes courage to look at yourself clearly, to know yourself, and to be authentic.
But it gives you energy, confidence, and an understanding of yourself and others. In the long run, I believe that being authentic — disagreeing with someone, for example — makes even difficult relationships stronger.
It’s not the top of the mountain that makes us happy. It’s the small pleasures.
Being authentic doesn’t come easily. It takes some work to learn about yourself. But it’s worth it.
5. Do things you love
When I’m writing, I feel different. I feel better. I feel happier, I feel more centered. I feel more confident. Other writers I know tell me they feel the same thing. There’s really something magical about creative work. Of course, it’s not magic; it’s an expression of the human soul.
The pleasures you get from doing something creative that you love are tied to parts of the self that are not always available or conscious.
It goes back to knowing yourself and being authentic. The way I get that is by writing. For someone else it might be painting or dancing. Sometimes I’ll come back and I’ll see something I wrote and think, “That’s good.” That means it opened my unconscious. That’s where the gems are.
6. Move your body, rest your mind
For about seven years, I’ve worked out with a trainer twice a week. For a 101-year-old, I’m strong. I can lift 10-pound weights and get up off a chair holding the weights. I’m so proud of that.
When I had pneumonia and I was in the hospital, someone there told me that my exercising probably saved my life. So it isn’t just a good idea — it’s essential.
At the same time, you have to get a lot of rest. The brain needs rest in order to rejuvenate.
7. Don’t get stuck in negativity
Negative thinking is common, and it’s a killer.
Why do some people feel optimistic and some, no matter what they say, it comes out negative? It’s how we’re born, I believe. We come into the world optimists or pessimists. Some people have such difficult times in their lives. If a pessimist would say, “Why me?” I would say, “Why not?”
It takes courage to look at yourself clearly, to know yourself, and to be authentic.
It’s very hard to overcome negative thinking, but to the extent that we can, we need to acknowledge the positive and try to move forward with optimism.
8. Do what you know you need to do
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve often been asked, “What’s your secret?” I don’t have a secret.
Longevity is what everyone knows to be true. We all know: Exercise, good diet, a healthy personal relationship with a partner, an understanding of yourself, a career that’s good for you — these are the keys to a happy life.
But there’s a gap between what we know and what we do. The problem for so many people is doing it. And that’s more mysterious than I can explain.
This as-told-to interview has been edited.
Babette Hughes is a writer who recently published her ninth book, “Lessons in Evil,” at the age of 101. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in the time of Prohibition and bootleggers. Though she’d previously published a memoir titled “Lost and Found,” she didn’t publish her first novel, “The Hat,” until 2015. She lives in Austin.
Stav Ziv is a contributors editor at CNBC Make It.
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