"Whether we are young, middle-aged, or old, the great majority of us believe in the happiness myth regarding aging — namely, that happiness declines with age, falling more and more with every decade until we reach that point at which our lives are characterized by sadness and loss. Thus, we may be surprised to learn what research conclusively confirms — that many of us could not be farther from the truth when we conclude that our finest years are long behind us. Older people are actually happier and more satisfied with their lives than younger people; they experience more positive emotions and fewer negative ones, and their emotional experience is more stable and less sensitive to the vicissitudes of daily negativity and stress. Although exactly when the well-being peak occurs is still unclear, as different investigations find somewhat different results — three recent studies demonstrated that the peak of positive emotional experience occurred at ages sixty-four, sixty-five, and seventy-nine, respectively — what is supremely clear is that youth and emerging adulthood are not the sunniest times of life, but likely the most negative.
"For those of us who believe that our best years are over and that absolutely nothing improves with age, this finding is rather baffling. Laura Carstensen, who founded Stanford University's Center on Longevity, has spent over two decades developing and testing a theory to answer the question of why people become happier as they get older. She argues that when we begin to recognize that our years are limited, we fundamentally change our perspective about life. The shorter time horizon motivates us to become more present-oriented and to invest our (relatively limited) time and effort into the things in life that really matter. So, for example, as we age, our most meaningful relationships become much more of a priority than meeting new people or taking risks; we invest more in these relationships and discard those that are not very supportive. Consequently, our emotional experience is more likely to comprise peacefulness and serenity rather than excitement and joy. We also come to a greater appreciation of the positives in our lives and learn how to extract more happiness from them.
"Of course, this doesn't mean that after we pass the midpoint of life, we will be happy all the time. As we grow older, we come to recognize more and more that life is fragile — that nothing lasts forever — and feel more gratitude for all the years that we have left. But the longer our life, the more likely we are to encounter and witness losses, which leads us to have relatively more bittersweet or poignant experiences — for example, joy at seeing our sister again mixed with sadness that our brother is no longer alive. This co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions actually may temper our high highs and low lows and render our emotional lives more stable.
"The second half of life and beyond is thought to promote happiness in several other ways. Knowing that our time on earth is limited, combined with the increased maturity and social skills that come with every decade, motivates us to maximize our well-being and to control our emotions more successfully. For example, we might do our best to make ourselves feel better when we are feeling down or anxious or angry, and avoid spending time with people or situations that have made us unhappy in the past. Maintaining feelings of contentment, serenity, gladness, or closeness may also come more easily as we get older, because more mature people have been found to show a positivity bias in attention and memory. In other words, the older we are, the more likely we are to focus on and remember the positive features (and overlook the negatives) of our neighborhoods, our relationships, our life histories, and even random bits of information. This positivity bias may be a result of deliberate emotion-regulation strategies (e.g., the older we are, the more consciously we try to turn a blind eye to criticism) or a result of the brain structures associated with the processing of negative emotions experiencing faster atrophy with age. However, the credit for our happiness in later life lies not only with us, but with everyone who interacts with us. A fascinating line of research has documented that the older we are, the more likely we are to be treated with respect and kindness: Others confront and criticize us less, acquiesce to us and forgive us more, and work hard to resolve tensions and deescalate conflicts. It's no wonder, then, that the best years are in the second half of life."
