Its easy (and fun!) to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season with parties, shopping, decorations, and holiday shows.   But after the final packages have been unwrapped and the last cork has been popped its nice to reflect on all that we have to be thankful for and our hopes for the New Year.  And thats why "30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans,"  is the perfect New Years gift to yourself.  

In creating this book, sociologist and author, Karl Pillemer, Ph.D., compiled the collective wisdom of more than 1,000 elderly Americans on relationships, parenting, work-life balance, stress management, enjoying life, living in the present, and more.  As head of a research project at Cornell called The Legacy Project,
he asked the questions we wished we had asked of our own parents and grandparents: about surviving depression and war, living with loss, maintaining faith, raising a family, and aging well.  The result is a heartwarming collection of personal recollections of lives well-lived by a generation that endured more than its fair share of adversity.

Some of the key advice that emerged from the book:

- Act Now like You Will Need Your Body for a Hundred Years.  Stop using “I don’t care how long I live” as an excuse for bad health habits.  Behaviors like smoking, poor eating habits, and inactivity are less likely to kill you than to sentence you to years or decades of chronic disease.

- Stay connected. Take seriously the threat of social isolation in middle age and beyond, and make conscious efforts beginning in middle age to stay connected through new learning opportunities and relationships. 

- Make the most of a bad job.  If you find yourself in a less-than-ideal work situation, don’t waste the experience; many experts learned invaluable lessons from bad jobs.

- Friendship is as important as romantic love.  Heart thumping passion has to undergo metamorphosis in lifelong relationships.  Marry someone for whom you feel deep friendship as well as love.

- Marry someone a lot like you. Similarity in core values and background is the key to happy marriage.  And forget about changing someone after marriage.

- Emotional Intelligence Trumps Every Other Kind.  Develop your interpersonal skills if you want to succeed in the workplace.  Even people in the most technical professions have their careers torpedoed if they lack emotional intelligence.

"30 Lessons"  is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and Penguin Books.  To enter for a chance to win a copy of the book, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with "30 Lessons" in the subject line.  Two winners will be chosen on December 16.