The Words of a Prize-giver

Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher and founder of the newspaper prizes said: Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.

Imaginative Investment

In Ageing Well, George E Vaillant recounts his conclusions from the longest study of physical and mental health of all time. It was called the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development, and it followed the lives of more than 800 Americans over the course of six and, in some cases, eight decades.

Valliant observes that individuals can get greatly better at coping, enjoying, and doing good over their lifetime, for personality is not slave to a bleak childhood, nor to the limitations of its young adult years.

Stick by the following principles and negative effects will diminish and disappear, he says: develop a rich range of loving relationships; don't smoke, and drink little; exercise frequently; watch your weight; and use humour against your troubles. Also, be patient, plan for the future, do good deeds, and channel your passion in positive ways.

Meanwhile, avoid isolating, punishing yourself, fantasisng, bingeing, or blaming others. Then the older that you get, the more your good habits and best endeavours will overcome problem genes and upbringing.

Be prepared to close one chapter in life, and in the next revitalise yourself with additional friendships and fresh learning. Be sure to absorb and reflect the lessons from those you have loved, and invest in your wellbeing as they would wish for you. By such means and many others, a 75-year-old can know profound joys and skills far beyond the compass of someone younger.

Science would agree with the poet Henry Longfellow:

'For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress;
And as the evening twilight slips away,
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.'

Long Life; Little Change ?

We are finished ... by the time we are three years of age ! Research in New Zealand has monitored individuals for more than 30 years and indicates that personality traits remain stable from the age of three, despite significant changes in life-experiences.

The reasons are summed up in three words - reactive, evocative and proactive. Personality and ability determine how people see the world differently. Individuals react to similar situations in a variety of ways according to their separate, distinctive temperaments. Each personality has a different 'filter' through which reality is perceived.

People evoke responses in others according to their looks as well as to their body and verbal language. It is difficult to change this responsiveness.

People's proactive choices determine where they go in accordance with their personalities. For example, extroverts choose lively settings, introverts prefer quieter ones.

'Through reaction, evocation and proaction, people seem to ensure that their experience of the world is tailored to their personalities and abilities, so they stay much the same,' writes Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London. Despite training and development courses, workshops and coaches, 'big-change strategies' and 'pressures-to-transform', there is little evidence to suggest that the processes have permanent effect.

'What evidence there is,' he writes in The Sunday Times, 'shows a rather depressing pattern - people do not change much over time.'