This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Life Enhancing Tips and How To's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Today ABC news reported that the “happiness curve” is like a smile, with age 44 being ” the old age of youth and 50 the youth of old age” (Victor Hugo.) and that happiness increases after 44.
According to the reseach conducted by Andrew Oswald at the University of Warwick in England along with a colleague in the US, they examined research on the levels of happiness and depression in over 80 countries.
The conclusion? Happiness resembles a U shaped curve (like a smile) and that as we age perhaps accepting life on life’s terms we seem to become happier.
Now, on one of my list servs the chatter is quite frantic. How can that be? Did they look at people who were divorced, widowed, in ill health? I secretly suspect these posters are approaching their 40’s and quite frankly are a little freaked out at the notion.
My best guess is that as we get older and experience life our perspective changes. The slings and arrows that “got” us at 20 now don’t seem quite so devastating.
I know that my late father-in-law was able to take things that devastated me when I was 30 in great strides at 80. Perhaps wisdom does count…perhaps having survived the unsurvivable (or so we thought) does build that resilient “muscle.”
I was recently in a group of 50ish women and one woman was talking about losing her job. She remarked, well, the worse has happened to me, I lost my child. I certainly can cope with losing a job.
Interesting perspective…something to take hold of and perhaps a way to look at the seasoned part of life with a U shaped grin…
Smooch
Beth
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