By Arthur C. Brooks, Illustration: Jan Buchczik, The Atlantic, February 17, 2022
Imagine yourself 10 years from now. Will you be happier or less happy than you are today? I ask my graduate students—average age, late 20s—this question every year. The majority think they will be happier. But when I ask about their prediction for 50 years from now, it seems a lot less rosy. Being in their late 70s doesn’t sound so great to most of them.
They are shocked when I show them the data on what happens to most people: Happiness tends to decline throughout young adulthood and middle age, bottoming out at about age 50. After that, it heads back up again into one’s mid-60s. Then something strange happens. Older people split into two groups as they get old: those getting much happier, and those getting much unhappier.
Right around this same time of life, many people realize the importance of having made good financial decisions in their earlier decades. Those who planned ahead and saved up are more likely to be able to support themselves in comfort; many of those who didn’t, can’t. Something similar happens with happiness, as I show in my new book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.
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