People get happier as they get older, a massive study involving 340,000 people seems to show.
Maybe because they forget what makes them unhappy?
Well, the study did conclude that the happiest folks that the Gallup people found were in their 80s. So maybe not hearing too well or seeing too sharply makes more of life feel warm and fuzzy.
The pollsters asked six yes-or-no questions: “Did you experience the following feelings during a large part of the day yesterday: enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness.”
Young people had more negative responses. As the age of the responders rose, more and more said they enjoyed their yesterdays and were happy — at least part of the day.
Living in the happy 80s as I do, I think I can explain. Getting old has its pains. It’s not for sissies, the current bromide says. But hurting is not the same as being disgruntled; not the same as looking at each day through dark brown glasses.
Being happy is mostly a matter of being content with one’s lot in life. Contentment allows a person to find enjoyment in ever so many things: sunsets, birds singing, the smell of lilac and honeysuckle, a loved poem reread; a piece of work done well; a written paragraph pregnant with thought and insight; every touch from friend or family; a bell choir, art that pleases; quiet contemplation of the world full of wonders we have been given to explore.
With such a cornucopia poured out before and around us, happiness should be man-kind’s natural state at every age.
I FIND taking a paring knife to a ruby red grapefruit, making six cuts, top to bottom, pith-deep, then peeling off the thick skin to bare the naked fruit is a satisfaction. Leaning over the kitchen sink to eat the sections, so the juice won’t splatter onto shirt and floor, is another pleasure.
Old people find happiness in little things. So do children.
And if the old are lucky, the years have taught them to handle stress, to stop worrying about what they can’t change, to banish anger before its acid burns (nothing bites deeper or corrupts more completely); to accept sadness as a part of growing old, which can lead to rich memories of yesterday’s happy times.
That’s why old people answered those six questions the way they did: they had learned the lessons life had to teach.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
