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Young and old get it wrong: older people are happier

By dmunger on June 13, 2006.

A new study adds fuel to the notion that older people misremember how happy they were when they were young. What's more, young people mistakenly figure they won't be as happy when they're older.

"People often believe that happiness is a matter of circumstance, that if something good happens, they will experience long-lasting happiness, or if something bad happens, they will experience long-term misery," says lead author Peter Ubel. "But instead, people's happiness results more from their underlying emotional resources -- resources that appear to grow with age. People get better at managing life's ups and downs, and the result is that as they age, they become happier -- even though their objective circumstances, such as their health, decline."

Apparently I didn't know how good I had it when I could run a 6-minute mile, or stay up until 4 a.m. Perhaps what older people realize is how much happier they could be if they had their youthful bodies. (As an aside, John Scalzi's book Old Man's War covers this meme quite well)

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My father used to say, "Youth is wasted on the young." When I was a teenager, it used to drive me crazy. Now that I'm in my 50's, I know he's right.

whats more interesting is that they found any different at all between old and young since there is a pretty good pile of literature that says there isn't any difference.

I think we're too idealistic sometimes--the whole "want what we can't have" sort of thing. People need to try to be more content in general. You can't change your age, only your state of mind. :)