Imagine yourself in ten years. Do you think you will be happier or less happy than today? Every year I ask this question to my students, whose average age is under thirty. Most of them think they will be happier. But when I ask them to predict how they will feel in fifty years, the prospect becomes less rosy. For them, being seventy years old certainly doesn’t sound like a godsend.
For this reason, every time they are amazed when I show them the data on what happens to the majority of people: happiness tends to decline throughout the course of adulthood and middle age, reaching a negative peak around the age of 50. From that moment, however, he began to improve, up to the mid-sixties. Then something strange happens. Older people fall into two groups: those who become much happier and those who become much sadder.
At about this same stage in life, many people understand the importance of making correct financial decisions in the previous decades. Those who have planned for the future and saved have a good chance of living without difficulty. Many of those who have not, however, face economic problems. Something similar happens with happiness, as I wrote in my new book From strength to strength: finding success, happiness, and deep purpose in the second half of life.
A visionary idea
Each of us has something like a happiness “retirement plan” that we invest in as young and enjoy the rewards as seniors. Just as financial advisors advise their clients on specific behaviors (turn on automatic savings, think twice before buying a boat) we can teach ourselves how to carry out certain activities that will make our last decades much happier.
In 1938, researchers from Harvard Medical School had a visionary idea: they would involve some students and follow them from youth to adulthood. Every year or two, the researchers asked the subjects to tell them about their lifestyle, their habits, their personal relationships, their work activity, and their happiness. The study has since expanded beyond Harvard alumni, and the results have been updated regularly for over eighty years. These results are a priceless resource (and I’ve cited them several times in these columns). Observing how people lived, loved and worked when they were in their twenties and thirties allows us to predict how their lives will evolve in the following decades. Thanks to this crystal ball of happiness we can learn how to invest in our future well-being.
As study participants aged, the researchers placed them into different categories with respect to happiness and health. Within the general population the variation is large, but two distinct groups emerge at the extremes. The people in the best conditions are the “happy-healthy” ones, who enjoy good physical and mental health and lead a fulfilling life. At the other extreme we have the “sad-sick”, below average in physical health, mental health and contentment.
When they were young, happy-healthy people accumulated resources and good habits in their happiness “retirement plan”. Some of these aspects, as with generational wealth, are difficult to control: having a happy childhood, having long-lived ancestors, avoiding clinical depression.
But other factors are (to varying degrees) under our control and can teach us a lot about how to plan for our happiness in old age. Using data from the Harvard study, two researchers in 2001 showed that we can directly control seven activities that affect our future: smoking, alcohol consumption, body weight, exercise, emotional strength, education, and personal relationships. Here is what you can do with each of these activities to ensure that your happiness “bank account” is rich in old age.
The best way to maximize your chances of being happy after age 70 is to strive for all seven goals listed, balancing your happiness “retirement plan”. But if you can only choose one, focus on the last one. In fact, according to the Harvard study, the most important trait of happy-healthy seniors is that of healthy relationships. As Robert Waldinger, currently head of the firm, explained to me in an email, “Well-being can be built, and the best building blocks are solid and warm interpersonal relationships.”
The seven happiness facilitators are all based on the population mean. This means that, as they say in advertisements, your personal case may be different. Perhaps, for example, you cannot quit smoking. This does not mean that you are doomed to a poor old age, but you had better reinforce one from the other “investments”, for example by finding meaning or a sense of community in faith.
If you want to achieve a high level of happiness, following these seven steps is the most reliable way to do it. Examine your current habits to understand where you need to invest the most time, energy, or money to start moving in the right direction.
Everyone loves the happy ending, especially if the story in question is that of their own life. Start writing it today.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)