We have the potential to get happier (and more successful) as we get older
Social scientist Arthur C. Brooks: to be happy, change the metaphor from a canvas you’re filling up to a block of marble that you’re chipping away. From his book "Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life".
1. Happiness is not just up to chance.
Happiness is not just a feeling, it is made up of enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose.
We can control all those things a lot more than we think.
We can be happier at 75 than we were at 25.
2. The striver’s curse.
After 70 people either get more happy, or get less happy, and it has nothing to do with how successful you have been.
3. Our natural strengths change—and we need to get from one success curve to the second.
Early in life we have "fluid intelligence" – the ability to work hard with focus and solve problems, your analytic capacity.
This decreases in your 40s and 50s, especially without practice.
Later in life we develop "crystallized intelligence". This is wisdom, knowing how to use information, and passing on knowledge or teaching.
The trick is to go from fluid to crystallized, innovator to instructor.
4. Don’t add without subtracting.
The one thing that all happy old people have in common is that they don’t add without also subtracting things from their lives.
Early on, life is like a canvas that you are filling up with paint – creatively, with energy, with enthusiasm, more brush strokes, more pain! And it’s all up to you – only by your imagination. But after a certain point, that canvas gets pretty full.
To be happy, you need to change the metaphor from a canvas you’re filling up to a block of marble that you’re chipping away. In the second half of your life, you need to become a sculptor and chip away the things that aren’t you—the possessions, the attachments, the beliefs, even the opinions—all the stuff that distracts you from the serious business of being you.
Don’t just have a bucket list—have a reverse bucket list for every year on your birthday, when you look at the five or ten things you want to get rid of because they’re holding you back.
5. Happiness is based on love.
If you don’t have a lot of love in your life, you can’t get happier as you get older. You need to work on the love in your life, to cultivate your relationships, whether they’re your friendships, family, or marriage. You’ve got to see them get better as you get older so that you can get happier as you get older.
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