Bergman's 'Lives Well Lived' Documentary Now Has a Book

Sky Bergman's documentary "Lives Well Lived" is doing very well. PBS recently renewed its contract with her to broadcast the film for another four years.

Even so, Bergman was inspired to write a book about the same subject. She made the decision for two main reasons.

"I had so many people that asked me to do so," she explained. "They would watch the movie and take notes, and watch it multiple times. A number of people asked me to please do something so they could have the words of wisdom of all these amazing people.

"I think the second reason was because I really got interested after doing this film in connecting generations," Bergman said. "That's been a really big focus of my work and the new films that I'm working on as well.

"And so in the second half of the book, I took the opportunity to talk about how you can interview a loved one and connect with an older adult," she said. "What are the advantages of having intergenerational connections, and how can you bring something like this to your community, educational institution or corporation?

"And then I decided to interview people around the globe," Bergman said. "I interviewed 40 people around the globe that were doing very interesting work connecting generations, whether it was through climate change, or an intergenerational symphony or housing.

"All these different ways that people are connecting generations to hopefully make it something that becomes more the norm because we live in such an age-segregated world and I feel the world is suffering as a result.

"What can we do to bring generations together?" she wondered. "I think that was my attempt to inspire people to look at some of the programs that are out there and maybe become part of those programs, or at least start a dialog with somebody from a different age group, and maybe make a friend from a different age group.

"So that was why I wrote the book," Bergman said. "It was really twofold, one was to get the lessons that I learned along the way in writing the book, and the second was to inspire intergenerational connection."

Grandmother Evelyn

Bergman described her grandmother Evelyn Ricciuti, who inspired the book and the documentary, as "amazing."

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about her and think about all she inspired me to do," she said. "I know she would be totally thrilled with everything that has happened along the way with the film.

"She did get to see it on the big screen and then she passed away six weeks later, so she did at least get to see it there with a live audience and have some inkling maybe of what was going to happen with the film," Bergman said.

"She was very humble," she added. "She didn't understand why I was doing a film that was inspired by her, and she didn't think that she was anything special, but to me she was the world. I think what a gift it was that I lived long enough to really have the time to appreciate her and to spend with her.

Resilience

Bergman uses the word "resilience" when describing many of the people she interviewed for the book.

"When I think of the word 'resilience,' I think it's really a matter of living through life's events," she said. "There's going to be ups and downs, and a moment when things are not going well. How do you overcome that and get through that?

"I think that resilience and positivity, which I feel go hand-in-hand, are being able to get through that moment," Bergman said. "But also what I found in the people that I interviewed was that they were able to look back at memories with a sense of positivity, even though they were the toughest of times. Somehow they were able to look back on things and make the best of that situation."

She shared something that Lou Stone, one of the people she interviewed, said to her.

"I would visit him when he was 97 and I would ask him how he was doing, and he'd say, 'You know, it's not like when I was 95.'"

Finding a Purpose

Bergman advises older adults to find a purpose.

"We need a purpose no matter what our age," she said. "And I use the term 'older adults' rather than 'seniors.' I would say that to anyone, no matter what your age. I see it in the university students who are in one major and then all of a sudden they're like, 'Oh, my God, this is not what I want to be doing,' and they're floundering because they don't know what their purpose is going to be yet.

"I think that for many people, the other time that they feel that shift is when they retire from a job that they've done their whole life," she continued. "A lot of times when people ask us who we are and what we do, we just describe ourselves by the job that we do. When we retire from that job, we don't know how to describe who we are in the world and what we're doing.

"The people that were really the most satisfied and the most content as they age were people that found a new sense of purpose," Bergman said. "For me, one of the really important things to learn along the way of making the film and the book was that really no matter what age we are, that sense of purpose is vitally important."

One of those she interviewed had been a pediatrician.

"When he retired, he started making mozzerella for his daughter's deli every morning, and that was his sense of purpose, just to get up and make sure that was done every day."

For another, her new purpose was teaching English as a second language every morning.

"For somebody else it could be learning something new," she said. "I also think as we age, many people have a sense of purpose that's also tied to giving back in some way so that we feel useful and we feel like we can still contribute. I think that's what makes it so important is that we feel like we are involved in something bigger than ourselves."

Loneliness

The biggest surprise to Bergman while writing the book was that the surgeon general compared loneliness as a health factor to smoking about 15 cigarettes a day.

"As we age, we really need to be sure that we have a good sense of support and a good sense of community and that we're not isolated," she said. "There is a loneliness epidemic that is happening in this country, and I think that is something to really be cognizant of.

"I talk about it in the book that one of the common factors that everyone in the book or in the film had was a sense of purpose, and another was community, and the third was positivity and resilience," she said.

"Sense of community was vitally important as well, and it didn't necessarily have to be that it came from your family. It could be friends.

"Friendships are work," Bergman said. "It takes work to continue your friendships. It's a little more difficult when we're not at the workplace anymore and we don't see people on a daily basis.

"I think we have to make it happen and really push to make new friends and feel like we are part of a community, but I think its proven to be very, very important for our physical and mental health," she said.

Everyone Has a Story

"I would say that everyone has a story to tell if we just take the time to listen," Bergman said. "Some of them may be more compelling than others, but certainly everyone has an amazing story to tell if you just sit and take the time to listen.

"I could have done this Lives Well Lived project anywhere," she added. "You pick 40 people and I probably would have been able to get an interesting story. Not everyone can tell the story really well so not everybody's good on camera, but I would venture to say that everyone has an amazing story to tell, at least one in their past."

Lives Well Lived is available in bookstores as well as online on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.