I'm the last one standing at a party that ended years ago. Everyone I loved is gone. Everyone I hated is gone.
My wife went first, then my friends, then even my enemies. Before they left, every single one of them asked me the same question. What's your secret, Walter?
And I always said the same thing, clean food. And I believed it. But here's what I noticed.
The ones who ate perfectly, exercised for hours every day, followed every rule, they left just as fast as the ones who didn't. So, what was the real difference? I've had a lot of time to sit with that question and the answer had nothing to do with what was on my plate.
Diet was never the secret to a long life. When I was your age, I thought eating right would fix everything. After losing everyone I loved, I started noticing things.
My name is Walter. I'm 105 years old. I drove a taxi for 41 years.
I still wake up every morning at 6 and make my own coffee. I still sit in the same chair I've been sitting in for 47 years. [music] The chair across from me has been empty for 11 years.
I stopped moving it. People come here, reporters, doctors, neighbors, they all want the same thing, the list. What do you eat, Walter?
How many hours do you sleep? Do you take vitamins? I give them the list.
[music] They write it down. They leave happy. I'll give you the list, too.
But if I stop there, you'll leave just like they did, happy, having missed the whole thing. Because every single one of them missed the point. Nobody ever sat down and asked, "Walter, what kept you going after everyone was gone?
" "Walter, how do you wake up after 105 years and still decided matters? " Those were the questions I always waited for. [music] But nobody ever asked them.
They wanted my food list, my sleep schedule. If sleep alone extended life, half the people I knew would have lived forever. Maybe you're wondering about the list, too.
Well, the list. Two eggs every morning fried in butter. real meat twice a week, vegetables from the ground, bread, water, black coffee, no powders, no vitamins, [music] and yes, I'll admit it.
Sometimes a piece of chocolate after dinner, a small whiskey on cold nights. You know, I never starved myself. I never punished myself for eating something I enjoyed.
The people who made food into a religion, who counted every calorie, who felt guilty every time they sat down at a table, most of them were miserable. And miserable people, in my experience, don't live long. There was a doctor uh I can't remember what year a long time ago young man very confident told me my cholesterol was going to get me before 60.
I outlived him. Found out when I went to the hospital didn't know what to say. Said nothing and headed home.
Write down the list if you want. It's real. But what I'm about to say is far more important than any list.
Nutrition is only one piece of this puzzle. Back when I was still driving, I had a regular fair for four years. Twice a week, same hospital.
I never forgot his name. Dr Pollson, nutritionist, had books, gave lectures. The man knew everything about food.
What to eat, what to avoid, exact portions, exact timing. Listening to him on the phone in the back seat, coaching his patients on what to cut from their diet, I learned more from that back seat than most people learn in a classroom. One day I asked him, "Doctor, what's the secret to a long and healthy life?
" He [music] said, "Walter, eat clean, sleep well, avoid stress. " I said, "Do you do all of those? " We listen to the engine for a moment.
Then he said, "I eat clean. I sleep fine. The stress part, [music] I never figured that one out.
" Dr Pulson passed in his 70s. I drove his wife to the service. I think about him sometimes.
That man had all the knowledge, wrote all those books, [music] and the one thing that was wearing him down. He knew it, named it, and still couldn't let it go. If a healthy list could keep a man going, [music] he'd have lived forever.
But it couldn't. The real answer wasn't on any plate. I came to understand that because of Margaret.
Margaret and I were married for 58 years. Yes, 58. And I was a good husband in the ways that are easy to measure.
I worked. I came home. I didn't disappear.
But she used to say something year after year. Walter, you're sitting right there in that chair, but you're still driving that cab. Come home now.
What she said was part of what got me to this age. Because when I retired, I just sat around for months. No shift, no route, no responsibilities waiting for me.
I'd wake up, make my coffee, sit in this chair, and wait for something to happen. One month, same thing. Two months, same thing.
Margaret would walk past, ask if I wanted coffee, I'd say yes. She'd bring it. That was the whole day.
My whole life had become a retired man just waiting to go. If you have no purpose waiting for you the next morning, all you're doing is waiting to go. And that prepares the body to do just that.
One morning I walked out to the garden. I don't know why, honestly. [music] There was a weed near the tomatoes and I pulled it.
Then another and another. Two hours later, I was on my knees, hands [music] pitch black, out of breath. When I came inside, she was standing at the door.
She just looked at me. But I knew that look. That was the look of a woman who had been waiting.
Not for an hour, not for a week, for years. I had found a purpose and gone after it. I wasn't just sitting around waiting to go anymore.
A purpose doesn't have to be big. It just has to get you out of the chair. For me, it was the garden.
When I turned 70, I started walking 20 minutes a day. I know every crack in that pavement. Those small routines kept me going.
If I had spent those years just sitting around, you wouldn't be watching this video. Every day, I gave myself a reason. Not big, small.
Stopping to argue with the neighbor on the corner about football. putting on music at 7 in the evening, watching for the sunlight through this window at exactly 4:00 every single day like clockwork. Small things, embarrassingly small, but they kept me here.
Every morning I had a reason to get up [music] and they gave my day somewhere to go. The ones I watched go the fastest, they retired from purpose and work at the same time. They just sat down [music] and the body took the cue.
With stomachs full of clean food, [music] they drifted away slowly and quietly. Now, here's the part I haven't said yet. The part that costs the most.
Margaret passed 11 years ago. It'll be 12 this October. The years start folding into each other after a while.
That's one of the hard parts of living this long. The morning after she was gone, I woke up at 6 out of habit. I went to the kitchen and made two cups of coffee, put them both on the table, [music] and I stared at those two cups for a long time.
I couldn't drink mine. couldn't. But I didn't pour hers out either.
I just left it there and sat with it. The coffee went cold. The light in the kitchen changed.
An hour had passed, maybe more. And at some point, I realized I was still breathing, still sitting, still here. And the day wasn't going to wait for me.
The hours kept moving. So, I got up, went to the garden, pulled some weeds, walked my 20 minutes, came back, called my son Robert, didn't say much, just talked. And somewhere in that ordinary, painful, unremarkable day, I found a small reason.
Not big, just enough. That is the only real secret I have. Every day you have to find a reason.
[music] Some days it's small enough to fit right in your hand. My son Robert, 78 years old, 40 minutes from here, called last spring, said he'd been meaning to visit. Work was busy.
He'd come when things slowed down. I said, [music] "Robert, I am 105 years old. Come now or you come when I'm gone.
your call. He came that Saturday. We sat on this porch for 6 hours.
He told me things he'd been carrying for 30 years. I told him things I should have said when he was 40. [music] He comes every 3 weeks now.
Every [music] three weeks. Having good people around you is not a luxury. It's part of how you stay alive.
I know that now. And one more thing, because I'm too old to lie. Part of living long is luck.
My father lived to 94. My grandmother lived past 90. The body I was born with had good bones.
I could tell you it was all discipline and intention, but that would be a halftruth. and halftruths are for people who still have something to protect. My name is Walter.
I'm 105 years old. This morning I woke up at 6, made my coffee, went out to the garden. Just a few minutes I can't kneel like I used to.
Watched the light come through. Put on a record. Sat down in this chair.
looked at the empty chair across from me and said good morning to it the way I do every day. Eat real food. Move every day.
Keep people close. Find something, anything that makes the morning worth opening your eyes for. But more than any of that, stop just getting through your days.
A man can make it to 105 and still have checked out early in all the years he spent waiting to arrive somewhere. The days are not in your way. The days are the whole thing.
