Jonathan Rauch is a highly-respected journalist (New York Times, Washington Post) and contributing editor of The Atlantic. After enduring and overcoming a mid-life stressful period, he extensively researched the psychosocial and behavioral science literature on happiness, and summarized it in this book. I had seen several favorable reviews, but wasn't expecting much new insight into an admittedly nebulous concept of happiness/unhappiness. I was wrong; this was a good read.
The book begins with several introductory chapters exploring the definition of happiness and unhappiness, discussing the measurement tools and the strengths and weaknesses of survey data, and examining the effect of various life experiences.
"All the evidence says that on average people are no happier today than people were fifty years ago... Yet at the same time average incomes have more than doubled... how you feel about your life does not necessarily reflect how one might suppose you should feel, at least by the materialistic standards of homo economicus... People who are in very fast-growing economies are less happy than people in slower growing economies... Rapid change makes people very unhappy... the paradox of frustrated achievers and happy peasants."
The U-shaped curve featured on the book cover has been recognized for decades and reproduced in a multitude of studies. The reason for that shape is less clear, and is the focus of Rauch's book. If you are in a hurry with little time to read, I recommend skipping to chapter 6 - "The Paradox of Aging: Why getting old makes you happier."
"Stress declines after about age fifty... trying to explain what caused stress to decline so sharply, they adjusted for about twenty variables... The pattern didn't change. In fact, it grew stronger, as if age itself were reducing stress... Emotional regulation improves... part of the reason emotional weather tends to settle down with age may be the accumulation of life experience... "I don't let that stuff bother me anymore"... Older people feel less regret... healthy aging helps people accept what they can't control..."
There's way more to discover in the book, which can be read in a couple evenings, but I think it is deserving of a more leisurely perusal, leaving oneself time for self-reflection. If nothing else, just the knowledge that the axioms "this too shall pass" and "things will get better" have some statistical validity is rather reassuring.
The book begins with several introductory chapters exploring the definition of happiness and unhappiness, discussing the measurement tools and the strengths and weaknesses of survey data, and examining the effect of various life experiences.
Assuming you have your health, and in this country, the money to maintain it.
ReplyDeleteThose aspects are fully discussed in the book.
DeleteMakes sense, at 50 the kids should have moved out, the house is, or is close to, being paid off, and life is less stressful.
ReplyDeleteHowever that was in the Ozzie & Harriet 1950's.
Now at 50 companies are looking for ways to dump you for younger(cheaper) help, the kid is still living in the basement with no job and a $100,000 college loan, and the cost of living/property taxes have out stripped your income for years.
The studies cited in the book are not harvesting data from the 1950s. The trend is still valid in contemporary surveys.
DeleteHave you also read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari? Highly interesting; he talks about happiness as something that is not defined by an absolute degree of (material/spiritual etc.) wealth, but as something relative to your expectations. The higher one's expectations, the harder they are to achieve, hence the lesser happiness one feels, and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteMy life experiences do not follow the typical aging process, but I still got happier in my 50s. Oh yeah, there were still ups and downs, but when you reach a certain age, you learn to take pleasure in what's available to you (counting your blessings, so to speak), and you also learn your own strengths. When you have aged and the gutters fall off the house, you say, "It's not so bad. My house once burned down. I still have a house, I can handle this." When your boss yells at you, you recall worse bosses. When you stub your toe, at least it's not breaking a hip.
ReplyDeleteInteresting read indeed. Through it i discovered John Haidt. His 'The righteous mind' is amazing. His 'The happiness hypothesis' was a good read too.
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