Its a rough ride until 45

Slate published an article summarizing a recent study by David Blanchflower of Dartmouth and Andrew Oswald of Warwick which contains some sobering findings. The main finding, or the one i found most interesting, is how happiness evolves with age. Happiness over people's lifetimes is a U-shaped curve: there is a gradual decline from ages 16 to 45, you bottom out and then your happiness rises from age 45 on into old age.

I have mentioned this study to friends and everyone instinctively jumps to the conclusion that 45 is the age when your kids leave home. My hypothesis is that at 45 you have sufficiently lowered your expectations and have come to terms with the fact that you are not going to be as wealthy, famous, renowned etc as you expected and you learn to appreciate what you have. Perhaps we should all expect a little bit less out of life.