Happiness is an U curve according to some research.
As death approaches, happiness increases.
It’s true, suicidal people have a strange phenomenon where they seem happy for a short time, because they know they don’t have to worry about their lives anymore, just before they take them
That was 13 years ago, I’m also curious how much that relates to world events vs age
For me it’s always gone in phases. My happiest phase in life was raising kids. Now they’re in college so I need to figure out my next phase in life
Not in my case - I’m 73 and despite physical challenges I’m happier than I’ve ever been. What makes me happy is having wonderful friends, plenty of interests and all my marbles.
I look back on my anxious 20-something self with pity. Why was I so bloody worried what everyone would think of me?
Aged 32, finding each year more enjoyable as I grow into a career and have more disposable income
Here you go, OP (full-access preprint here). There’s no need to get anecdotal about this; it’s a very well-studied question in psychology, sociology, and economics. The U-shape has extensive evidence supporting it. If “have you gotten progressively less happy as you age?” were the prompt here, I wouldn’t be doing this, but you asked a general question that can be and has been answered empirically over and over.
From Tech’s Link…
You missed a call
Hell yeah
So, it can get better, but rarely if ever does it compare to the blithe joys of youth.
I do wonder if this upturn is related to cognitive decline, and therefore ties into the old “ignorance is bliss” adage, then.
Hell, maybe that has something to do with old folks enjoying reruns: it reminds them of their life, then and now. 🤔😅
They’ve also often got lower stress levels, higher wealth and/or more time than people in their thirties to fifties do. I’d be really interested if they’re also happier than their middle aged counterparts in countries where the elderly are disconnected from their communities and not financially supported.
Edit: it’s true around the world, but I’m not sure if it’s true in every country or just generally yet
And, when younger, expenses were less likely to be their responsibility, ergo “more wealth”, et al, in youth as well. 🤓
The question is, if this is correlation or causation. Maybe some people just do less things, that make them happy as they age? Doesn’t mean that you are gonna be unhappy.
Also, this is an average and I imagine, that there is a very high variance among different people. A lot of people may very well get progressively, happier as they age.
I would say, that happiness comes very much down to how you live your life, how you view the world and what you do.
If you have a job, that makes you happy and good relationships and stuff like that, you are probably gonna be happy regardless of your age.
This study https://www.spring.org.uk/2024/12/age-most-depressed.php shows people getting more miserable towards middle age, then getting happier. The happiness graph makes a smile shape of course.
I wonder how the happiness in old age is seperated by wealth. like those on public assitance in homes compared to those with enough wealth to stay in their homes till death.
I thought I saw something about income increasing happiness but only up to a certain level (and then saw more studies that disagreed), i always thought it’s probably more correlated in Western countries where status and income are almost synonymous.
We present evidence that psychological well-being is U-shaped through life. A difficulty with research on this issue is that there are likely to be omitted cohort effects (earlier generations may have been born in, say, particularly good or bad times). First, using data on 500,000 randomly sampled Americans and West Europeans, the paper designs a test that can control for cohort effects. Holding other factors constant, we show that a typical individual’s happiness reaches its minimum - on both sides of the Atlantic and for both males and females - in middle age. Second, evidence is provided for the existence of a similar U-shape through the life-course in East European, Latin American and Asian nations. Third, a U-shape in age is found in separate well-being regression equations in 72 developed and developing nations. Fourth, using measures that are closer to psychiatric scores, we document a comparable well-being curve across the life cycle in 2 other data sets (1) in GHQ-N6 mental health levels among a sample of 16,000 Europeans, and (2) in reported depression-and-anxiety levels among 1 million UK citizens. Fifth, we discuss some apparent exceptions, particularly in developing nations, to the U-shape. Sixth, we note that American male birth-cohorts seem to have become progressively less content with their lives. Our results are based on regression equations in which other influences, such as demographic variables and income, are held constant.
I dont’ think its status as much as a decent basic necessitites thing along with security. If you have the money to live in a decent, clean, healthy environment with food and knowing health needs or such will be met and then further know that will be the case until you die. Then its much easier to be happy. I get the studies though but im always suspect. Like how much of the U is specific to a sorta point in time and is it eroding for people getting to those ages.
I’d take it further to say having enough income for a reasonable number of desires also increases happiness.
But this is harder because you’re more miserable if you can’t moderate or your desires outgrow your resources or it turns into greed
We’re all familiar with happy to have the freedom to buy x but the emptiness of chronic shopping
certainly. Im in a zero disposable income situation and it drives me crazy the little things I have to forgo that while not strictly necessary are niceties or conveniences.
I don’t know about others, but as I grow older and realise I have progressively less time left, I grow less patient of other people’s bullshit. Some people may consider it a symptom of diminished happiness, but it’s more a degradation of my social filters.
Not necessarily, but for the last couple decades the world has been getting progressively shittier, so it might feel that way, especially when you have chronic depression due to the world getting progressively shittier.
(Also the people you care about get older and sicker, and will eventually die, and you can’t really do much about that, which isn’t particularly fun either. It all builds up into the chronic depression.)
I am more content with who i am now but I am also quite restless and I’m finding it difficult to connect to people
Until the current generation, happiness was generally a u-shaped curve, with happiness going down around their early 20’s and coming back up around the 60’s.
Gen Alpha doesn’t seem to have a happy childhood.
Gen Alpha doesn’t seem to have a happy childhood.
In some regions, yes. But not everywhere. They mostly seem happy to me
For parts of the world with data going back to boomers and earlier, there is a quantitative slide.
In general, yes.
From my anecdotal perspective, it seems to me like lots of people around me stopped prioritizing their own interests and needs in their late 20s.
I did not.
I enjoy the life I’ve built.
They, apparently, do not.
YMMV
There are peaks and valleys. I’ve been happier, but I’ve been more miserable.
the older you get, the more health problems you have, and let me tell you, health problems can make you involuntarily unhappy.
Under late-stage capitalism, yes.
I think there may be something to brain chemistry and physical make-up changing over time, but I’d argue that for most people happiness is environmental.
