Skip to main content

The Happiness Curve

Image
By

Ever felt your life-satisfaction dip as middle-age approaches? It's not just you. It's quite normal. Here's how it works and what we can do about it.


The title and the cover of the book give away the main point. As humans we tend to be less happy in the middle part of adulthood. Even if we're successful we can still get dissatisfied.

Of course this is an average. It is "possible to be satisfied in middle age" - but it is harder.

While genetics, circumstances and voluntary actions are crucial to explaining life satisfaction, there seems to be an aging component also.

It's all relative

This graph from the book shows average happiness (darker points) compared to expected happiness (measured five years earlier).

For instance, the average 22-year-old's happiness is just above 7. But when asked for a prediction as 17-year olds, their average answer was 7.7.


Clearly our expectations are high. Experts call this "optimism bias" and it appears to decrease with age. However, in the meantime, all the accumulated years of lower-than-expected happiness leads us to feeling dissatisfied in our 40s - or even earlier.

From 50-ish the two lines start to merge - largely because our expected happiness decreases - and "things start feeling better" (even if they're not).

Also, with age stress decreases, emotional regulation improves and regret decreases.

A new adolescence?

As we age our values and goals change, so our perception (and happiness) changes as a result.

The author suggests we should look at the second half of our working life as separate stage of life (like adolescence is different from childhood). 

"We should not hate ourselves for being awkward and pimply as teens; nor should we berate ourselves for being lost in midlife."

He describes this as "encore adulthood" where our motivations, goals and interests may have changed dramatically since we were 25. He also laments the lack of structure for this at the moment, in terms of counselling, training and "job fairs for grey beards".

Tips for the meantime

If you're in this stage of life (the happiness sag) there are some tips

  • Normalise it. You're not the only one going through this.
  • Interrupt your internal critic
  • Stay present with meditation, yoga or exercise
  • Share your feelings with other people
  • Step, don't leap. We get happiness by making increments towards a goal. Achievement of a goal is fleeting.
  • Wait. It gets better by itself.

My take

It seems that at first the "hedonic treadmill" of work - new projects, promotions, awards and pay rises - keeps us interested. But after while they no longer have the allure that they used to have. We wonder why we're doing this?

Often we've also changed as a person and we're interested in different things (compared to when we were 20). But often we feel it's too late to make a change. We often stay on the path we're on - even if we're not happy with where it's going.

One of the laments of the author is that the "sag in happiness" comes at roughly the same time in life that financial burdens are at their greatest. Obviously this can make it harder for people to do anything about it.

For me this is one of the great benefits of spending less. Accumulated savings and investments give us so many options in our future years - whatever they may hold.

When we reach our "encore adulthood" we can have the ability, and flexibility, to "devote what time I have in life to the people and things that strike me as most worth doing". And we can do it without having to worry about how to pay next week's bills.

Further Reading

Why we're not happy with things

Happiness: 13 science-based hacks

See more of my book reviews, or subscribe to my monthly email for future ones.

Read more about:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Your Money or Your Life

By
Which is more important? Our money or our life? So why do we trade away so much of our life? Vicki Robin's classic book takes an in-depth look at how we can have a better relationship with money. Here are some of my highlights, though there's so much more great value in the book. I found it so inspirational after reading the foreword and the first chapter. While the backbone of the book is a 9-step plan, there are two concepts that really stand out - even if you never start the plan. One is the idea of "life energy" and our "real hourly wage". The other is the point of enough. Life Energy What is money? Vicki Robin comes to the conclusion that it is a form of life energy. It might sound a bit new-age, but it's like the old business saying "time is money". We exchange our time, and our physical and mental energy to get this thing called money. So when we use it we are effectively spending our life. The exchange rate Spending money is almost like...
Post a Comment
Read more

The real cost of owning a car

By
It's been about 10 years since I've owned a car. My wife doesn't own one either. "You must save a lot in petrol" That's one of the frequent reactions when someone discovers we don't own a car. "Of course, but it's just the tip of the iceberg" is the usual theme of my reply. Many people I've talked to just aren't fully aware of the real cost of owning a car. Or even that there are six different costs of owning a car. Six? Really? Yes. Occasionally a work colleague or friend will boast their car only costs $X per week. Of course it turns out only some factors have been counted. Sometimes it's just petrol alone. To some people, that feels like the only cost they pay each week. Why does this matter? You might be questioning the need for a second car in the household (or even having one at all). Or you might just be choosing which car to get next. Either way, to make an informed decision we need proper information. So let's look at...
2 comments
Read more

Where is the best place to live?

By
Where we live determines a lot about our life.  So today I'm going to share a resource that can help you decide where might be a good place to live.  It started with an article ranking Brisbane suburbs from 1 to 260 . That ranking was based on a set of 17 factors. Here are some of them. But all 17 may not be relevant for you. And some might matter more than others. So they developed a tool where you can rank the 5 factors most important to you and it will give you a personalised list of Brisbane suburbs that would be the best for you - based on those factors. There are also  Sydney and Melbourne  versions. On the results page, there's also a map that colour-codes each suburb by star rating, for each factor. For instance here's the map for public transport. Five-star suburbs are in blue. When you click on a suburb, you get the name and the star rating of that suburb - for whichever factor you select. I find this to be so enlightening. I choose not to own a car. Some...
Post a Comment
Read more