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

Monopoly, money and you

By
One of the most well-known board games can also be a great way to learn about money and investing - according to this book. Perhaps one way to teach kids (and maybe ourselves) about finance is to play a board game. In so many ways, the game parallels our own financial life - and we can practice financial decision-making without losing any real money. Is monopoly like life? Yes and no. We manage our cash, negotiate, make deals, make choices, go through tough times, make investments, pay tax and reap rewards. To do well we have to make investments. It's very hard to win just by collecting $200 each time you pass go. There are rules, and wise moves. The better we know them, the better we do. However, in real life, you can win without forcing others into bankruptcy. Principles that work in the game and life Diversify. You might have hotels on the two most expensive properties on the board, but if no-one lands on them, you still might lose. Investments have a price and a value. They are...
Post a Comment
Read more

The 'keys' to happiness

By
At the moment my wife is practising a song. She'll be performing it on piano at the upcoming wedding of a friend. She wants to do lots of practice so it can be just great for the day. But we don't own a piano. At this point the material world says "Well, go out and buy one". But these days there are many more options. After a couple of practices on a friend's piano we put out the call on Streetbank - a community site for people to share things with their neighbours. Within a day we had a couple of offers of a keyboard to borrow. It's a great solution as it was free for us, and made use of keyboards that were just sitting around unused. One was so unused that the owner said he would test if it still worked before he lent it to us. I'm told that Aristotle once said that joy was in use not in ownership. I think this is a good example of that philosophy in action. Although sometimes I question if it's "joy" to hear the same song pract...
Post a Comment
Read more

Are cooktops a waste of space?

By
Who has ever had four saucepans cooking at once? So why do we have four hotplates on cooktops? Back in the day of all-in-one units, four hotplates were a nice fit on the top of the oven. These days the cooktop and ovens are usually separate but we've stuck with four hotplates. In many homes and apartments it's worth re-thinking. Is this is a wise use of bench space? Two-saucepan cooktops are making an appearance and freeing up some bench space in smaller kitchens. Aldi are taking it a step further with the Induction Cooking Plate . It's a stand-alone single-hotplate device that can be packed away when not in use. Aldi says it has 8 temperature settings, 5 preset cooking functions, a timer, touch controls and overheat protection. Could this be the future of smaller kitchens? Cost-savings in building. More bench space. Less energy consumption with the efficiency of induction cooking. Another great example of less is more. I don't mean this to be an ad, but...
2 comments
Read more