Peak Misery?
I turned 47 a few weeks ago.
I made the mistake of googling what I should know about turning 47.
Turns out that a recent study shows that the peak age of misery for people is 47.2.
That’s me. Right now. A Dartmouth economist, David Blanchflower, using data from 132 countries, has found that the 47.2 is officially the unhappiest age.
I didn’t think I was very unhappy until I read that stat.
But upon further consideration maybe I was.
My hair and eyesight and patience are all disappearing at a rapid rate.
Apparently, 47.2 is an age when kids are growing up and moving out of the house, according to the study, which accelerates unhappiness.
We’re certainly at that stage in life with our oldest daughter off in college.
But, for me, it’s the ones that are still at home that are causing the most headaches.
I threw a snowball at our 15-year-old son last week and he asked me, “Is that really how you want to be spending your twilight years.”
Funny kid. Our nine-year-old now revels in being a faster runner than me, and also regularly beating me in hallway soccer.
When we watch movies at home my new movie rating system for a good flick is “two eyes wide open” for whether or not I fall asleep watching it.
I read more about this peak misery study and found that essentially there’s a U-shaped happiness curve.
Starting at age 18 your happiness levels decrease, reaching peak unhappiness at 47.2 but then happiness levels start rising again, and by your mid-60s you are as happy as you are when you were 18.
Apparently as we age towards our 60s our bar gets lowered for what makes us happy.
That’s a pretty nice thought.
But my bar for happiness is already so low that I’m not sure how much more it can get lowered.
I’m ecstatic when I can find the remote without flipping up couch cushions.
Also according to the study when we are younger we think we’ll do great things and it takes until we’re 47.2 to “quell their infeasible aspirations.”
Supposedly 47.2 corresponds with the average age that people see their chance to make a big mark in this life or do something meaningful slipping away.
Reading that did make me unhappy.
I think I still have a lot of infeasible aspirations – and I hope I hold onto those.
As depressing as all this sounds for my current stage of life, there is reason for optimism.
It’s all uphill from here – right?
Now where’s that remote?
Jeff Wick is the editor of The Fayette County Record. He’d love to hear about your infeasible aspirations at jeff@fayettecountyrecord.com