The Centenarians Don't Have an Identity Crisis

Near the end of a recent podcast conversation, my host shared something he and his wife have made a lifelong project. They study the Blue Zones, the regions of the world where unusually large numbers of people live into their nineties and past 100. Their goal is to visit every one of them and understand what makes those communities different.

Then he said something that stopped me. Listening to our conversation about identity, he had realized that the people living the longest in those places don’t seem to have an identity crisis. They know who they are. Diet, movement and daily routines matter, he said, but underneath all of it is a deep, settled sense of self.

I agreed, and I added one thing. They also still know what community means.

What the research points to

The Blue Zones were popularized by Dan Buettner, who identified five regions: Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Ikaria in Greece and Loma Linda in California. In a 2016 article in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, Buettner and Sam Skemp summarized the habits those communities share.

Several of them have nothing to do with food or exercise.

Purpose. Okinawans call it ikigai. In Nicoya, it is plan de vida. Both translate roughly to the reason you wake up in the morning. The authors write that knowing your sense of purpose may be worth up to seven years of added life expectancy.

Belonging. Nearly all of the centenarians they interviewed belonged to a faith-based community of some kind, and the specific denomination didn’t seem to matter.

The right tribe. The longest-lived people were part of social circles that supported healthy behavior. In Okinawa, people form moais, small groups of friends who commit to one another for life.

Read those together and a pattern emerges. These are people who know why they are here and who they belong to. Identity and community show up side by side.

You can’t have one without the other

This is the connection I think we’re missing in much of modern life.

Community depends on people who know who they are. When you are clear about your values and what you bring, you can show up for others without losing yourself. You can disagree without feeling threatened. You can be generous because your worth doesn’t depend on what you get back.

When you don’t know who you are, community becomes much harder. You spend your energy managing how you come across. You join groups to borrow an identity rather than to contribute one. Relationships stay shallow because no one is fully present, including you.

My host also observed that many of these long-lived people don’t seem to worry much about what others think of them. There is a sweetness in that. It isn’t indifference. It’s the freedom that comes from no longer needing to perform. Many of us spend so much energy managing impressions that we have little left for the people right in front of us.

So the question isn’t only whether we have enough community. It’s whether we know ourselves well enough to build it. How can you truly connect with the people around you when you haven’t yet connected with who you are?

I wrote about how self-knowledge grows through other people, not apart from them, in Self-Awareness Is Built in Public. The Blue Zones suggest the reverse is true as well. Community grows when people know themselves.

What the rest of us can learn

You don’t have to move to a Greek island to take these lessons seriously. A few places to start:

Name your reason for getting up in the morning. Not your job title. The thing you are here to contribute. If you can’t say it in a sentence, that’s worth working on.

Choose your tribe on purpose. Look at the five or six people you spend the most time with. Do they help you become more of who you are, or less?

Make belonging a practice. The communities in these studies didn’t happen by accident. They were built through regular rituals: shared meals, standing gatherings and commitments people kept for decades.

Teach it early. Young people today have more ways to connect than any generation before them, and they can still feel alone. Helping them understand who they are may be one of the best long-term investments we can make in their health and happiness.

My host’s insight has stayed with me. We tend to think of a long life as something we earn through discipline. The Blue Zones suggest it is also something we earn through knowing who we are and who we belong to. The people who live longest seem to have figured out both.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.