There was a piece in the Telegraph last week claiming that nearly two thirds of people over the age of 50 are happier now than at any previous time in their lives. We know there are lies, damned lies and government surveys, and at first sight this seems to be one of the least persuasive polls ever. Who could possibly prefer to be in their fifties than in their twenties, feeling the ache in their bones, realising they have probably had most of the sex they are ever likely to get, and knowing that their personal date with mortality is moving ever closer?
I was just about to cast the paper aside with a Meldrewish ‘I don’t believe it’ when I realised that, actually, absurdly, I really am happier now than I’ve ever been before. Every day when I wake up I feel blessed that I’m no longer drinking and attempting to get through the day with a hangover and the certain prospect of more joyless refuelling. I’m almost as glad to have stopped smoking, despite the occasional fierce craving for a Golden Virginia roll-up. In a weird, Zen-like way, giving stuff up is actually an addition to life, not a subtraction.
But my contemporaries, who still drink cheerfully and moderately and gave up smoking long before me, mostly seem ridiculously happy, too. I think it’s partly the feeling of having nothing to prove any more, the realisation that we’ve probably reached a point in our lives where we might just as well be content with what we’ve got rather than miserably hankering for those things that have eluded us. Much better, surely, to consider the glass (in my case of delicious blackberry and blackcurrant smoothie) half full rather than half empty?
But I think and hope there is gratitude involved, too.
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