In “30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans,” author Karl Pillemer interviewed thousands of what he calls “older people” — primarily those at least 65 years of age, who “have lived life and learned from it.” From his interviews, he identified and writes about 30 lessons in five categories:

• Marriage
• Parenting
• Aging
• Living without regrets
• Happiness

Here’s one of my favorite excerpts:

In everyday life, people often regret things they’ve said. We lose our temper and let someone have it, only to rue our hasty words. Or we e-mail an off-color joke that comes back to haunt us (and these days, it can travel around the world in a couple of minutes). However, when it comes to deep, long-lasting regret, the experts pointed instead toward things left unsaid. The view from later life is this: if you have something to say to someone, do it before it’s too late. The experts emphasize this lesson either because they are grateful that they spoke up while there was still time or because they profoundly regret not having done so.

Ralph Veliz, seventy-two, reinforced this point by offering an insightful aphorism: “Send flowers to the living. The dead never see them.” His rule for regret-free living: do it now.

If you like that advice, you’ll probably like the book.  For some more excerpts, see this article about the book by columnist Jane Brody in The New York Times, “Advice From Life’s Graying Edge on Finishing With No Regrets.”

As for sending flowers to the living, what do you think? Are you more likely to regret doing (or saying) something — or not doing (or saying) it?

Isn’t it wonderfully comforting to read an article about other people’s problems and realize that you’re not alone? That’s how my wife and I felt when we saw The Wall Street Journal article this week with the sensational headline, “Meet the Marriage Killer.” The subhead: “It’s More Common Than Adultery and Potentially As Toxic, So Why Is It So Hard to Stop Nagging?”

“Nagging — the interaction in which one person repeatedly makes a request, the other person repeatedly ignores it and both become increasingly annoyed — is an issue every couple will grapple with at some point,” the article wisely observes.

Interestingly, the article says that “women are more likely to nag” — not because it’s something they want to do, but “largely because they are conditioned to feel more responsible for managing home and family life.” Yup.

Fortunately for me, the nagging doesn’t usually involve essential tasks such as paying bills. Instead, I’m more likely to ignore requests that I deem not urgent, such as ordering prints of digital photos.

But, of course — as Stephen Covey famously pointed out in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” — a non-urgent task can still be important. Also, just because something isn’t important or urgent to one spouse doesn’t mean the other spouse feels the same way.

If any relationship is going to thrive, then each person needs to respect the other person’s perspective. Which sometimes means: Accommodate the request so the nagging will stop so everyone will be happier.

Are you on the giving or receiving end of nagging? Have you found ways to eliminate (or, at least, reduce) this problem?

I just finished reading “The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money,” an excellent and easy-to-read book that preaches a lot of common sense about finances — something I often lack. (You know: Penny-wise and pound-foolish.)

The book doesn’t provide any hardcore financial advice; instead, it offers important reminders about money and life. And smart explanations to questions such as, “What’s the connection between happiness and money?” Author Carl Richards explains:

First, money can buy happiness — up to a point. You need some money to be happy, but once the basics are covered the link fades quickly.

Second, experiences matter more than objects. Remember the thrill of finally getting the shiny new toy? At some point, it stopped being new and shiny. The same doesn’t apply to that amazing trip you took with your family. The trip may last for only a few days, but the memories you create will bring you greater happiness throughout your life than the gadget you picked up at the store last week.

Third, happiness sneaks up on you when you let it. We may have an inalienable right to pursue happiness, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll actually capture it. Maybe we’ve let ourselves get so caught up in the pursuit that we’re missing the point….

Maybe happiness comes easiest when we are so busy working, taking care of kids, shoveling snow, or cleaning the house that we forget to look for it.

Richards’s words seem consistent with those of Gretchen Rubin, who wrote in “The Happiness Project” book that money can help buy happiness. “Whether rich or poor, people make choices about how they spend money, and those choices can boost happiness or undermine it,” she said.

So, my takeaway from these authors is that there is indeed a connection between money and happiness, but that they don’t necessarily rise and fall in-sync. And that how we choose to spend our money, not simply having money, is important to our happiness.

Also: I’ve learned recently that spending money can make me either happy or unhappy — and that my reaction usually has little relationship to the price of my purchase. For example, I’m very happy that I spent $750 on my iPad because I use it every day for work and pleasure; but I’m unhappy that I spent $15 on a book about learning to play the piano — because I’ve never opened it.

What’s your relationship between money and happiness?

Last week on my favorite TV show, “Parenthood,” Kristina tried in vain to get her 8-year-old son, Max, to stop playing a video game and get into the family car for a road trip to visit his great-grandmother. When Max refused, his mother turned off the television, putting an abrupt halt to the game — leading to the following stunning exchange:

• Max (shouting): “Do you realize what you just did?!”
• Kristina (calmly): “Don’t yell at me.”
• Max: “I’ve been working on that level for days!  I just lost everything! You are such a bitch!”
• Kristina: “What did you just say? That is it! You’re punished. You are being punished.”
• Max: “Yeah, like last Saturday when you said I wouldn’t be able to go to the movies and we ended up going anyways?”
• Kristina: “You’re not going on this trip. Get upstairs!”
• Max: “This is so unfair! I hate you!”
• Kristina: “I’ll say what’s fair and what’s not fair. I’m the mom.”

Kristina Punishes Her Son, Then Relents

So, Kristina stayed at home with Max and his infant brother while her husband, Adam, and their daughter went on the trip. Kristina justified the punishment by telling Adam: “I need to follow through on this… I warn him all the time and it’s meaningless.”

But then, after the rest of the family had left, Max showed remorse — so Kristina relented, bought two plane tickets and joined them at the trip’s destination.

Debbie Punishes Her Son, Passionately

In real life, my friend Debbie bought her 11-year-old son a Nook Tablet for Christmas. But when she found out that he had broken a friend’s toy and then lied about it, she showed him the unopened gift and told him that he didn’t deserve it because he had lied. She then took him, crying, to Barnes & Noble where she returned the Nook with her son by her side.

Debbie told her son how he could earn back the gift in six months’ time.

I Couldn’t Punish My Son (or so I Thought)

Before the recent holidays, one of my sons (honestly, I don’t recall the details!) said or did something worthy of punishment. But we were about to depart for a Disney Cruise. So what was I supposed to do? Staying at home wasn’t an option given the planning and expense that had been incurred, but it seemed odd to follow bad behavior with an amazing week of non-stop fun.

So we went, of course. And now, as you can tell, the incident — and certainly any potential punishment — have been long forgotten.

Who Was Right?

Three incidents. Three different outcomes.

Kristina punished and relented. Debbie punished and didn’t relent. I forgot about it.

In each case, did the punishment (or lack of it) fit the “crime” — and the surrounding circumstances? What would you have done?

(For one view, read “The Experts Speak” on the “Parenthood” website.)

When I bought an iPad shortly after it was introduced in 2010, I sold my Kindle — thinking that it would be duplicitous to own two devices on which I could read books. But soon, I found it almost impossible to read a book on my iPad without being distracted by the temptation to quickly check e-mail, browse a website, catch up on Facebook, read a newspaper or blog or do something else. As a result, I began to read far fewer books.

For the 2011 holiday season, I just got a new Kindle (thanks, Leslie!) and, as a result, I’m reading — and enjoying — books again. Because, on a black-and-white Kindle, that’s about all you can do. In other words, it is not as easy to succumb to distractions.

The rise of technological distractions has been well-documented. As a writer in The New York Times just said, “In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug.”

(The fact that this article topped the Times’s list of “most-emailed” items is a testament to the popularity of its message — as well as further evidence of the demands of multitasking: Why just read when we can simultaneously share?)

Do One Thing at a Time

Like Rachel Bertsche, an author who told Gretchen Rubin on The Happiness Project blog that her new mantra is “Do One Thing at a Time,” I agree that doing too many things at once is overwhelming. And likely not very productive.

The power of focus is obviously strong. It helped Steve Jobs turn around Apple after he returned to the company as CEO; as described in Walter Isaacson’s book about the high-tech visionary (which I just read on my new Kindle), “One of Jobs’s great strengths was knowing how to focus. ‘Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,’ he said.”

If it’s good enough for Apple, shouldn’t it be good enough for me, too?

So, as 2012 begins, I’m going to seek more focus. To reduce some of the unnecessary distractions. To identify the essential and eliminate the rest — as Leo Babauta wrote in The Power of Less (another book I just enjoyed reading on my new Kindle).

I don’t know if 2012 will be, as one writer just predicted in The New York Times, “The Year of the Multitaskers’ Revenge.” But by sometimes choosing a simple e-reader over the magical multitasking iPad, I’ve already seen that I can feel more focused, more accomplished and less stressed. And I’m sure there are lessons in that experience for the new year.

Do you want less multitasking and more focus? What can you do to get it?

This is a short (but long overdue) post on The Betterment Blog, to share a book that was just recommended to me: “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It’s not a new book (published in 2005), but it’s new to me.

Like another book I recently started reading, “Get Some Headspace” (reviewed at The New York Times), “Wherever You Go” is about mindfulness and the benefits of meditation — concepts that, admittedly, have never been truly familiar to me. But, given a hectic lifestyle full of many blessings not always fully appreciated or celebrated, these are concepts that should be important.

I’m not (yet) anything close to being an expert on mindfulness, but the topic has struck such a chord with me that I wanted to share. And, specifically, to share a paragraph from the beginning of “Wherever You Go”:

To allow ourselves to be truly in touch with where we already are, no matter where that is, we have got to pause in our experience long enough to let the present moment sink in; long enough to actually feel the present moment, to see it in its fullness, to hold it in awareness and thereby come to know and understand it better. Only then can we accept the truth of this moment of our life, learn from it, and move on. Instead, it often seems as if we are preoccupied with the past, with what has already happened, or with a future that hasn’t arrived yet. We look for someplace else to stand, where we hope things will be better, happier, more the way we want them to be, or the way they used to be. Most of the time we are only partially aware of this inner tension, if we are aware of it at all. What is more, we are also only partially aware at best of exactly what we are doing in and with our lives, and the effects our actions and, more subtly, our thoughts have on what we see and don’t see, what we do and don’t do.

I read this passage aloud to my wife. Doing so helped me focus on what it means to me. Especially: “let the present moment sink in.”

Too often, I fail to stop and smell the roses. Because I’m focused on the past or the future.

But, like the sage advice I heard in the children’s movie Kung Fu Panda (see, not all of my entertainment is so heavy), “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the ‘present.’”

What does mindfulness mean to you? How do you focus on the present? Do you meditate? What do you get, if anything, from the passage quoted above?

The following guest post was written by Aidan Donnelley Rowley of the “Ivy League Insecurities” blog.

* * *

Stop. Step back. Squint. Look at the landscape of your life. Do you like what you see? Do you love what you have?

Too often, we get mired in the micro. In the drudgery and dust of our days. In the exhaustion and the exasperation that glosses existence. It is all too rare that we look at the bigger picture, the wider world.

Each of us has one life. One life full of people and things, passions and places. One life.

I realize something. Something good. That something? I love my life. Its contours. Its contents. Husband. My girls. My Mom. My sisters. My family. My friends. My readers. My city. My home. My head. My writing. My words. My doors. My dreams.

Sometimes, the minutiae are maddening and the details debilitating. Sometimes, I am bogged in doubts, awash in insecurity, unsure of my way. But the big strokes? They are grand and gorgeous. And I love them. It. This life.

And so. I vow to do it. To walk away from the anxieties. To stand back from the blahs. To squint. To study. To see. The life, imperfect but exquisite, that I have come to. The life, imperfect but exquisite, that I have created.

This. This life. This life I love.

I’m a relative latecomer to Facebook (which I now enjoy and appreciate), so when I recently saw a friend’s profile with 15 random — and hilarious — bits of information about him on his “info” page, I had no idea that, apparently, creating these lists was once a popular activity online.

And then I saw a similar list by Susan Gregory Thomas, a journalist with a moving new memoir, In Spite of Everything, who said that these lists “ran like a greased pig through the probably evil social networking site for a few months.”

So, without further ado, I now present my own list of random things about me:

1. My first “real” summer job (age 15) was selling appliances at Kmart.
2. I recognize that I’m much better at knowing what I should do than actually doing it. Yet, this recognition seldom helps me do anything.
3. I never drank coffee until I was 32 years old. Now, I drink it every day. Black, usually.
4. I love Mallomars.
5. I’m a lawyer who hates to argue.
6. Just like a toddler, I get grumpy if I’m hungry, tired or wearing clothes that are uncomfortable.
7. I once flew around the world (Atlanta to Geneva to Sydney to Atlanta).
8. I love to read the technology columnists’ articles every Thursday in The Wall Street Journal (Walt Mossberg), The New York Times (David Pogue) and USA Today (Ed Baig).
9. I usually don’t like to try new things — but, fortunately, I know that I often like new things once I’ve tried them.
10. I owned one of the first desktop computers, in 1981 — a TRS-80 Model I.
11. I jumped out of an airplane. Twice. In college.
12. I ate a goldfish. Once. In college.
13. In 1977, my parents got me an autographed copy of Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic. Thirty-three years later, I met Mark Wilson, who signed my oldest son’s copy of the same book.
14. My 40th birthday present to myself was LASIK surgery.
15. I used to be really fast at doing the Rubik’s Cube; but now I can’t get past the second layer.
16. I want a motorcycle. I don’t want a motorcycle.
17. For one semester in college, I was a research assistant for David Gergen at U.S. News & World Report. When we ran into each other many years ago on vacation, he was kind enough to act as if he sorta remembered me.
18. I prefer to listen my music on Pandora, because it’s easy and because I really do have favorite genres, not necessarily favorite musicians.
19. I wrote a book that was published by Random House (The GigaLaw Guide to Internet Law) and an article that was published in the 2002 edition of the World Book Year Book (“The Internet, Copyright, and You”).
20. I’m most productive when I have the most work to do.

Have you published a “random list” about yourself, on Facebook or anywhere else? If so, share it below in the comments. If not, start one now by writing a few items in the comments. Come on, it’s fun!

In Chapter 11 of his best-selling book Never Eat Alone, “the ultimate networker” Keith Ferrazzi explains the title: “Invisibility is a fate far worse than failure. It means that you should always be reaching out to others, over breakfast, lunch, whatever.”

I understand the premise, but I don’t agree with the advice.

Although Never Eat Alone mentions the Internet throughout, the book was published in 2005, when LinkedIn and Facebook were in their infancy, and before the iPhone, Twitter or Google+ even existed. In other words, the methods in which we can reach out today are far more numerous than just a few years ago.

Yes, I recognize that some people don’t spend their days in front of a computer or carrying a smartphone (though it seems as if there are far fewer of these people all the time). Indeed, as I wrote on this blog, “The Best Communications Tool is What the Other Person Prefers.”

But dining with others need not always be a networking event. And networking need not be limited to dining.

Having young children for whom I want to be present means that I rarely schedule a professional meeting over breakfast or dinner. And having more work than I can finish every day means that I often eat at (or near) one of my desks.

Of course, there are frequent exceptions, largely because I know that socializing or networking with others over a meal is a time-honored tradition — and also because the benefits of extended, face-to-face time provided by a meal cannot be duplicated by social media.

But in 2011, I have out-of-town clients I have never met in-person, and I have conversations with friends and family throughout the day. So, when it comes time to eat, I don’t mind if I eat alone. Doing so gives me time to read or reflect, to make healthy choices, and to quickly return to the other important activities that comprise my day.

Eating together will never be looked upon as an old-fashioned, inappropriate activity — like the legendary “three-martini lunch” — but neither should it be looked upon as mandatory. My plate is full enough without having to worry that I never eat alone.

Do you ever eat alone? If so, do you enjoy it — or do you dread it? How important is eating together for networking and socializing?

After a day already filled with enough personal drama, I was sitting peacefully back at the office in front of my computer when the phone rang. It was my sister, calling to tell me that she had just been on the phone with my wife when — during their conversation — my wife had been involved in a car accident. My sister didn’t have any details.

Already frazzled by the day’s earlier events, I immediately called my wife, who I knew had picked up our oldest son from day camp, so he was likely in the car, too. There was no answer. I called again. No answer. I texted. I was worried.

Fortunately, after only a few minutes (which, of course, seemed much longer), my wife called me. Everybody was fine. It was a minor accident. It was not her fault. I rushed to the scene — though even calling it a “scene” makes the whole incident seem much more dramatic than it truly was. And, once there, I saw my wife and my son and knew that there was no need to be worried.

A scary incident can go a long way to remind us how lucky we are. How we should remember the important things in life. And how, as a post over at the Tiny Buddha blog, titled “On Making Peace with Time,” recently noted, sometimes we just need to slow down:

We speed up to make green lights, even though it would be far less stressful to just wait for the next one. We leave insufficient time between appointments, creating anxiety around the process of getting from one place to the next.

We try to squeeze additional tasks into small unexpected windows of time, instead of simply appreciating the extra ten minutes that result when someone is late to a meeting.

So, this morning, I pulled over into a parking lot before I “needed” to respond to an e-mail on my iPhone. I took advantage of a long wait at the doctor’s office this afternoon by relaxing with a book, instead of stressing about my work or cramming in some extra chores on my laptop.

In a great book for any parent with young children, Wendy Mogel reminded us a few years ago of (as the title of her book is called), “The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee.” As she wrote: “Treating children’s daily distresses as an expected and unalarming part of life is an effective way to discourage them from turning small difficulties into big dramas.”

The same is true for us as adults, too.

No, I’m certainly not glad about my wife’s fender-bender. Getting the car repaired will be a hassle and time-consuming. But it’s a small difficulty.

Like my work colleague who, after 9/11, said it was a “disaster” that she was trapped out of town because she couldn’t get a flight home — and then suddenly realized that what she was describing was far from the real disaster — a near-miss is a good “crash” course to help put things in perspective.