Some of the answers captured in the TikTok videos were the same almost word-for-word
After speaking with a range of people aged between 70 to 100, an interviewer found many of them had similar answers about their regrets and thoughts on what’s important in life.
It’s easy to think we know it all in our younger years, but before long it becomes clear that hindsight is 20/20, and that ageing brings with it a lot of wisdom.
The videos proved that with age comes wisdom. (Pixabay)
With that in mind, TikTok user Yair has taken it upon himself to speak to people in their older years to get their perspective on life, and hear the things they wish they’d known when they were younger.
Some of the most poignant interviews were shared in a thread on X, where a common theme soon began to emerge.
One 79-year-old woman spoke about what the things she’d thought were important when she was younger, and expressed belief that while money ‘makes it easier’, it doesn’t ‘guarantee joy’.
Another man shared a similar opinion as he pointed out that ‘material goods’ and ‘more money than one really needs’ are not that important.
He continued: “As a younger person I think we tend to want to make a lot of money and acquire a lot of material things, have a big house, great car, all those things and, I realized that’s not what life is about.
“Life is about your relationships, love and being able to know what abundance really is and what enough means.”
Another couple as well as a 78-year-old man agreed almost word for word, saying ‘material things’ were not that important.
“We live on a boat and we sold pretty much everything. We thought we would miss it, regret it, whatever – no, [we] don’t,” the woman in the couple told Yair.
Her partner added: “We spent our youth trying to get bigger and bigger houses and nicer cars and all this kind of stuff, and a lot of that stuff now is meaningless.”
The interviewees stressed the important of relationships. (TikTok/@yairbrachiyahu)
When asked what is meaningful to them, the couple answered with ‘relationships, health [and] friends’.
The 78-year-old interviewee told Yair he’d tell his younger self that the ‘desire to have material possessions, to compete in that very artificial, empty world is a waste of time’.
“It’s useless and it’s very negative. And then [I’d tell him] to look for relationships,” he added.
A 93-year-old man also expressed regret at having lost the friends he’d made throughout his life, as well as his wife.
“I go places, do things and then I haven’t got anybody to tell about it,” he said.
Viewers have praised the interviewees for sharing their thoughts, with one X user commenting on the thread to point out that ‘listening [to] elders’ advice [is] always powerful’.
