The Truth About Being Happy In the Second Half of Life
Do we get grumpier as we get older?
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The Truth About Being Happy In the Second Half
What does ‘being happy’ mean? Positive psychology says it’s a state, not a trait, and equates it with feeling pleasure and contentment. Studies have shown that being happy positively affects our health. Being the possessor of a happy character can predispose you to have long and happy relationships and will help you in your older years
Happiness can predict health and longevity, but what’s involved in acquiring this sense of peace and well-being that underlies happiness? An established routine that involves self-care, e.g., exercising, meditating, and having a regular and good sleep pattern, can lead to a sense of calm and order, which is necessary for peace and contentment.
Studies have shown that happy people age less quickly than those not enjoying life. Perhaps this is because happier people feel they control their lives. They take responsibility for their aging rather than just letting it happen, which can lead to a sense of victimhood.
Unhappy people may accept the myths about being older, such as that you should become physically less active, travel less, and challenge yourself less. These beliefs are not true and should be abandoned. If life is to be worth living, people should surely live it fully at any age
Happiness is not the same as joy, which is more intense happiness or elation. Our capacity for joy increases because of experiencing pain and suffering. Several studies have shown that pain can bring us in touch with our immediate sensory experience, which explains why we can get a feeling of euphoria after an arduous and painful exercise experience. Without pain, how can we measure joy?
Is it common for everyone to be happier as they age? Apparently, it is. Research on the subject finds we get happier as we get older. Why that should be is mystifying scientists. One study concluded that older people are more experienced, so this allows them to deal better with negative emotions like anger and anxiety. Another study concluded that the cause is older people are more trusting, which leads to health benefits, in turn, this leads to happiness.
I recently read some results from a longitudinal study where researchers looked at personality traits to see if they changed as we age. Do people become progressively grumpier as they grow older? Not so, despite rumours to the contrary.
The research didn’t show any change in basic personality but showed it to be stable over time. Maybe it’s just that people are more inclined to voice their dissatisfaction with things they’re not happy with as they get older, so they may seem grumpier.
All real living hurts as well as fulfils. Happiness comes when we have lived and have a respite for sheer forgetting. Happiness, in the vulgar sense, is just a holiday experience. The life-long happiness lies in being used by life; hurt by life, driven and goaded by life, replenished and overjoyed with life, fighting for life’s sake. That is real happiness. In the undergoing, a large part of it is pain. D H Lawence in his novel The Boy In The Bush (The Marginalian)
Buddhists believe that happiness is achieved not through continuous pleasurable experiences, but by perceiving the true nature of reality without imposing our mental constructs on it. Individuals achieve happiness by undergoing mental training that purges the mind of negative emotions, such as hatred and compulsive desire. A Buddhist View of Happiness
I have a book by an author I’ve long admired for her down-to-earth writing style with few embellishments. The book Somewhere Towards The End is by Diana Athill. As the title indicates, she wrote it in her later years. She never married and writes about the friendships, lovers and events in her long life.
Included in the book is an interview she read with a 103-year-old pianist, Alice Hurst-Sommer, that impressed and inspired her. The woman was born in Prague to Jewish parents. She survived the war, though her parents and husband didn’t. Her previously happy life completely changed. She went on to become a successful concert pianist, and now lived alone, her only son having died aged 65. Diana Athill made the observation that she “might well be expected to be a grimly forlorn old woman.”
However, despite all that she has endured in her long life she said “Life is beautiful, extremely beautiful. And when you are old you appreciate it more. When you are older, you think, you remember, you care and you appreciate. You are thankful for everything.” She says, also: “I know about the bad, but I only look for the good.”
The author also includes in her book, the gains old age brings and she seems to have maintained a vibrant spirit throughout her long life. Impending death was one subject she covered and she died at the grand old age of 101 in 2019.
My experience of ageing and happiness is that as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more comfortable in my own skin, more drawn to positivity, and able to cope with the negatives in life. I have many tools for handling stress, forgiveness of those I feel have harmed me comes easier, and rather than dwelling on past embarrassments and behaviour that has brought me regret, I am more able to forgive myself. All of this enables space for happiness in my previously complicated emotional life.
So, from my experience and the results of scientific research, happiness does come easier as you get older. Some will say that it surely depends on your circumstances, especially your financial situation in old age. I am on the side of Buddhists and other philosophers who say that it’s not your material life that brings you happiness but the importance you place on the material and how you perceive what you have. That matters to being happy. This can be verified by the attitude of the 103 year old pianist, still playing the piano at the time of the interview, and the author, Diana Athill.
A post I wrote last year about retaining a sense of wonder and positivity as we age might be of interest to read next, as having a childlike sense of curiosity and wonder is essential to growing older and being happy: To Remain Positive Keep Hold of a Childlike Sense of Wonder.
Comments:
Do you agree that happiness comes easier as we get older?
Do you find it easier to voice your grumpy complaints as you’ve got older?
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I do not worry so much about complaining as I get older. Life is too short. I know I refer to myself as an old curmudgeon but that is partly because I can say what I think. But I will always do it diplomatically and not with the intention of upsetting others. A good rant is good for the soul as we get older.
I think circumstances often depend on whether we can find happiness more easily as we grow old. I think we are more accepting of life. No I am not contradicting my first statement. It is different. I am more able to accept my life as it is. Xxxx
I’m happier and see getting older as an opportunity to prove that we can still do great things , have big goals, still add value to the work place if we choose to continue working . Live big until the final whistle.