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When Will I Be Happy?
By Elena Shoval
The older the happier
Gilbert is one of many psychologists who try to give answers to various questions about happiness, its origin, and the relationship between happiness, health, wealth, gender, age and status.
Researching our pursuit of happiness is a relatively new field in today's psychology and is becoming more and more popular. Up to recent decades researchers paid most of their attention to learning about negative traits, feelings and difficulties in people lives, such as depression, obsessions or personality disorders. But in this last decade there have been more and more professionals focusing on positive feelings and on what makes us happy.
David Thoreson Lykken, a Professor from Minnesota University, who was known for his work on identical twins, argued that one's sense of well being is half determined by genetics and half determined by circumstances. His research findings suggest that a person's baseline levels of cheerfulness, contentment and psychological satisfaction are largely hereditary.
If this theory sounds disturbing try reading the findings of a more recent research, conducted by David Blanchflower from Dartmouth College in the US and Andrew J. Oswald from University of Warwick in the UK about the connection between age and happiness.
In their research, Blanchflower and Oswald checked data of more than 500,000 Americans and Europeans over a number of decades. According to their data our level of happiness and well-being changes through life in a U shape: We start in our 20's at a high level of happiness and well being, this level drops over the years and reaches its lowest level in our mid and late 40's, and then starts going up again till it gets to its highest peak in our 60's. These results were very similar for both males and females, Americas and Europeans.
So why do we lose our high level of happiness over the years and then regain them when we reach our 60's? Research does not provide answers to this question yet but my assumption is in our 20's we are still impressionable, trying to live up to other's expectations, sure we can make it and don't always bother listening to our inner voice and truth.
Over the years, after experiencing a reality of failures, setbacks, disappointments and denial of our true selves, we reach a low in our well-being. So much so that at the age of 40 many of us feel worn out and wonder if we are ever going to achieve anything of value in our lives.
This is when we come to the next stage in our lives. We learn to accept our shortcoming, recognize our true life passion and stop denying who we really are. Since we know by now that we won't be living forever, we finally find the courage to become who we really are and our levels of well being rise dramatically.
According to research most of us will eventually reach the appropriate level of happiness and well being. "So why push it?" You may ask. I say, you shouldn't count on happiness arriving by itself. I know many people in their 50's and 60's who still haven't reached this peak of well being. Although aging is guaranteed, wising up is not. So how is it going to work out for you?
By Elena Shoval
The older the happier
Gilbert is one of many psychologists who try to give answers to various questions about happiness, its origin, and the relationship between happiness, health, wealth, gender, age and status.
Researching our pursuit of happiness is a relatively new field in today's psychology and is becoming more and more popular. Up to recent decades researchers paid most of their attention to learning about negative traits, feelings and difficulties in people lives, such as depression, obsessions or personality disorders. But in this last decade there have been more and more professionals focusing on positive feelings and on what makes us happy.
David Thoreson Lykken, a Professor from Minnesota University, who was known for his work on identical twins, argued that one's sense of well being is half determined by genetics and half determined by circumstances. His research findings suggest that a person's baseline levels of cheerfulness, contentment and psychological satisfaction are largely hereditary.
If this theory sounds disturbing try reading the findings of a more recent research, conducted by David Blanchflower from Dartmouth College in the US and Andrew J. Oswald from University of Warwick in the UK about the connection between age and happiness.
In their research, Blanchflower and Oswald checked data of more than 500,000 Americans and Europeans over a number of decades. According to their data our level of happiness and well-being changes through life in a U shape: We start in our 20's at a high level of happiness and well being, this level drops over the years and reaches its lowest level in our mid and late 40's, and then starts going up again till it gets to its highest peak in our 60's. These results were very similar for both males and females, Americas and Europeans.
So why do we lose our high level of happiness over the years and then regain them when we reach our 60's? Research does not provide answers to this question yet but my assumption is in our 20's we are still impressionable, trying to live up to other's expectations, sure we can make it and don't always bother listening to our inner voice and truth.
Over the years, after experiencing a reality of failures, setbacks, disappointments and denial of our true selves, we reach a low in our well-being. So much so that at the age of 40 many of us feel worn out and wonder if we are ever going to achieve anything of value in our lives.
This is when we come to the next stage in our lives. We learn to accept our shortcoming, recognize our true life passion and stop denying who we really are. Since we know by now that we won't be living forever, we finally find the courage to become who we really are and our levels of well being rise dramatically.
According to research most of us will eventually reach the appropriate level of happiness and well being. "So why push it?" You may ask. I say, you shouldn't count on happiness arriving by itself. I know many people in their 50's and 60's who still haven't reached this peak of well being. Although aging is guaranteed, wising up is not. So how is it going to work out for you?
