Better With Age
“For age is an opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfe
When I was in my 40s, a retired woman surprised me by saying, “This is a good stage of life, if you have your health.” I had pictured retirement years as dominated by chronic illness, slower functioning, and memory loss. My opinion was predictable in a culture which prizes youth. Our society conditions us to look at the negatives instead of the positives of our later years.
Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, sees the positive side: “Though there are problems with old age, and the last year or so of life is pretty bleak for many people, that bleakness characterizes the end of life, not old age per se.” She says there are two competing voices on aging: the doom sayers and the romanticists.
I don’t want to be a romanticist. Aging has definite drawbacks. As Golda Meier said, “Being seventy is not a sin. It’s not a joke either.” I know old age is not for sissies, but for today, we are going to look on the bright side.
Duke University’s Peter Uble asked groups of 30-year-olds and 70-year-olds which of their two age groups they considered happier. Both groups selected the 30-year-olds. But then, both groups completed a survey on their own happiness. Surprisingly, the 70-year-olds were happier than the 30-year-olds. Older people have proved happier in other studies as well. Although, we live with the stereotype of grumpy oldsters, the data documents the opposite.
Older people have higher levels of positive emotions and lower levels of negative emotions—less sadness, anger, and fear. They also experience less clinical depression and have a lower rate of suicide.
The higher happiness level for older people has multiple dimensions. We maintain a positive outlook and agonize less over petty details. We let go of negative feelings. We have fewer stressors because most major life decisions—education, marriage, career, and family, and job changes—are behind us.
We also worry less about what others think of us. We are comfortable in our own skin, and we have more self-confidence. We even dare to be silly. If we watch any grandparent with a toddler, and we become totally convinced of our peers’ silliness capacity!
Because we are more emotionally stable later in life, we make wiser decisions than we did earlier. We are less impulsive, we understand what’s important, and we consider the long-term impact of a choice.
Having experienced the inevitable peaks and valleys of life, we have learned acceptance, compassion, and empathy. Rather than judging, we imagine what it is like to walk in another’s shoes. We accept who and what they are. We also become more accepting of the mystery of life, and of death.
The types of experiences that make us happy are different for the young than for he old. Young people seek thrills—extraordinary experiences. Older adults value ordinary experiences, the momentary pleasures that come to us each day. They are more mindful. And mindfulness—paying attention to the present moment—can help can reduce stress and promote good mental health, according to Flinders university researchers.
There’s another benefit of longer life. We have accumulated a rich storehouse of stories, and we have gotten better at telling them.
Looking back over the past decade, I realize that ever since I found my retirement niche I have been more satisfied than in previous decades. But I didn’t realize until I read the studies that my higher life satisfaction was typical. I maintained the grumpy-oldster stereotype and considered myself a lucky exception.
It took ten hours of study to convince me that what my retired friend told me decades ago about her stage of life was not just true of her and me, but true in general for many older adults throughout the country.
We have learned to be happy in spite of, instead of because of. We have, for the most part, been granted the request of the Serenity prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr. We have been granted the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the power to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Adapted from Creative Aging by Carol Van Klompenburg, published 2023, available from Amazon.