Page 48 - Time Magazine, Sep. 17, 2018

TheView Opener

In some ways, our youth and mid-
dle years are really a sort of training
period for the unanticipated pleasure
of being an older adult, psychologist
Alan D. Castel of the University of Cali-
fornia, Los Angeles, argues in his new
book, Better With Age: The Psychology
of Successful Aging. In one 2006 study
Castel cites, a group of 30-year-olds and
70-year-olds were asked which of the
two age cohorts was likely to be hap-
pier. Both of them chose the 30-year-
olds. But when those groups were asked
about their own subjective happiness,
the 70-year-olds came out on top.
Psychologists, anthropologists and
other investigators have long been in-
trigued by similar findings—that old age
is often a time defined not by sorrow,
dread and regret but rather by peace,
gratitude and fulfillment. Investigators
looking into the happy senescence phe-
nomenon attribute it to a lot of things:
seniors become masters of “terror man- In old age, fears of getting one’s heart broken begin to fade
agement theory” or “constructive dis-
traction” or “voluntary affirmation of
the obligatory.” In other words, they ally feel). A life that looks happy is not suming more than they’re contributing.
figure: I’m gonna die? What else is new? necessarily experienced as happy. But even before modern medicine ex-
Meantime, I’ve got my grandkids here. In the later decades, this changes in tended life expectancies, ordinary fami-
a lot of ways. For one thing, that busi- lies were including grandparents and
JUST AS SURPRISING as the happy old- ness of realizing that you may never even great-grandparents. That’s because
ster is the miserable middle-ager, Jona- achieve a long-desired goal can actually what old folk consume materially, they
than Rauch reports in his book The be a positive experience. After banging give back behaviorally—providing a
Happiness Curve, published in May. your head against the wall for 40 years leveling, reasoning center to the tumult
Life satisfaction appears to follow a to make partner or become department that often swirls around them.
U-shaped course, with its twin peaks in chair, the day you accept you’re free to In another study cited in Better
childhood, when the world is one great quit trying comes as a relief. With Age, a group of successful CEOs
theme park, and in old age, when we’ve There is, similarly, what Rauch de- of Fortune 500 companies—all 50 to
been on all the rides a thousand times scribes as an older person’s ability to 70 years old—scored lower on lab-based
and are perfectly content just to watch. normalize crises. Life can be a series of tests of reasoning and processing speed
It’s in the middle—our 40s and 50s, experiential typhoons, both good and than younger people, yet all the CEOs
when our power, potential and produc- bad—falling in love, falling out of love, nonetheless were running huge, stable
tivity are the greatest and we should be marriage, divorce, new job, lost job— and exceedingly profitable companies.
feeling our happiest—that life satisfac- and every one of them feels overwhelm- Clearly, something more than the ability
tion bottoms out. ing at first. But there are only so many to crunch a lot of data was contributing
The U is true across nations, cultures Category 5s that can be thrown at you to their success.
and income levels, research shows. It before you realize that the clouds will Earlier in life, wisdom can seem out
makes a lot of sense. For one thing, all eventually part and you’ll probably be of reach. But for those who have at-
that power and productivity require a left wet but standing. tained it, Castel writes, “often wisdom
lot of work to maintain, and it comes at Then, too, there is the business of allows people to see the obvious, or to
the very moment when other pressures wisdom. Evolutionarily, any species that use common sense without second-
are the greatest—raising kids, paying hopes to stay alive has to manage its re- guessing themselves or the outcomes.”
the mortgage and those kids’ tuition sources carefully. That means that first Yes, death is nonnegotiable—
bills. Your evaluative happiness (how call on food and other goodies goes to something that can only be delayed, CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON — MAGNUM PHOTOS
your life would appear if measured in the breeders and warriors and hunters never avoided. It’s a mercy, then, that
terms of wealth, achievements and a and planters and builders and, certainly, when we do reach the end, so many
stable family) can be very different from the children, with not much left over of us arrive there smarter, calmer and
your affective happiness (how you actu- for the seniors, who may be seen as con- even smiling. 
20 TIME September 17, 2018