While I’ll admit that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, I generally don’t like to spread the word about them. But in the case of a recent mistake, despite it being a real doozy that some people would tell me to cloak in secrecy, I’ll make an exception.
I just turned 50.
Wait a second. How is that a mistake?
Well, it’s not. And yet it is. Because in our youth-driven culture, aging is an embarrassing social faux pas. It’s something to be hidden, like a bad haircut that, in this case, will never grow out. Sometimes aging is even presented as a personal failure, as in, “How did you let this happen to you?”
I don’t know how it happened to me, which is what many people say about reaching a particular age. But while I can’t say that I’m specifically happy about hitting the big 5-0, I am happy in general.
In fact, I can’t remember a happier time in my life.
Ha ha, you might say, age is already causing his memory to fade.
Maybe so, but the idea of people getting happier as they age isn’t crazy. It’s even been the conclusion of enough studies of long-term mental health that there’s a name for it: the “Paradox of Aging.”
More on that in a moment, but first I’ll acknowledge that I do miss some things about my younger years. You know, I don’t want this to have some kind of fairytale vibe.
It was nice when I didn’t need a recovery day after playing basketball for two hours. It was nice when I didn’t need reading glasses to avoid eye strain. It was nice to actually need a comb, although I’ve been bald for so long that I might not know how to use it. My hair started heading for the coast when I was still squarely in the video games and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos demographic.
Back then, my attention to health care was little more than occasionally stepping on a scale. Now there’s the annual physical, plus recommendations for scopes and screenings. I still exercise, but not with the same intensity. I’m much more likely to be flipping pancakes onto a plate than flipping a tire at a CrossFit session. My credo? Everything in moderation, except when the pizza is really good.
Physically, I’m not what I was. But mentally, I’m not either, and I mean that in a good way. My perspective has changed, and that leads back to the Paradox of Aging, the term used for how life satisfaction and happiness can increase with age.
Note that I said happiness can increase, not that it will increase. We’re all different, and there are many circumstances that factor into happiness, such as family, health, career and finances. Happiness is also so subjective, and defined in so many ways, that I’m not sure it can really be measured scientifically.
But a few days after opening my final birthday card, all with the classic “what -- you’re how old?” theme, I thought about this:
Maybe there really is no paradox related to an age-related increase in happiness.
After all, collecting happiness is not like depositing money into an account. Happiness is an experience and a state of mind, and in that regard, the older mind actually has an advantage. Brain-imaging studies have shown that people become less responsive to stressful images as they age.
Less scientific, but even more important, is the change in perspective as you age.
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20,” Muhammad Ali once said, “has wasted 30 years of his life.”
Seems pretty wise. But what I’ve seen over the last 30 years also makes me understand why so many cringe at the thought of getting older. We live in a youth-obsessed culture, so with each passing year, there’s the fear of losing relevance and worthiness. What you have to offer can feel diminished when the new “influencers” are social-media stars who play video games or make eyebrows look like caterpillars.
Fortunately, vision improves with age. Not your actual eyesight, of course, but the way you see things. Your eyes begin to weaken, but in a world full of polarized black-and-white views, you see shades of gray better than ever. You also see a much simpler path to happiness than the confusing, often frustrating, road to what your younger self considered success.
I’m sure there are people older and wiser than me chuckling at the idea of 50 being a notable birthday. I’m only starting my sixth decade. What do I know?
I know that I still have a lot to learn, and God willing, many years in which to do it. I also know that it’s possible that the best is yet to come.
To give up that belief is the only true mistake of getting older.