Trivia Junction

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When will you be happy, Yesterday or Tomorrow?

A wrinkly smile in time

Back in 1965, when he was 20 years old, rock star Pete Townshend penned the line: “I hope I die before I get old” in the song, “My Generation.”

Townshend's now 61 and probably in no hurry to die, but his words reflect a commonly held sentiment: Most people believe their happiest days are in their youth, and that old age is a drag.

And they're wrong, say researchers at the University of Michigan and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, who found that young people tend to “mispredict” their happiness in old age, and old people tend to “misremember” how happy they were in their youth.

Researchers surveyed 540 adults between the ages of 21 and 40 and over the age of 60. They were asked to rate or predict their individual level of happiness at their current age, at age 30, and at age 70, and to judge how happy most people are at these ages.

“Overall, people got it wrong, believing that most people become less happy as they age, when in fact this study and others have shown that people tend to become happier over time,” said Heather Lacey, one of the study's authors.

“Not only do younger people believe that older people are less happy, but older people believe they and others must have been happier 'back then.' Neither belief is accurate.”

Lacey and colleagues say that most people mistakenly believe that happiness is simply a matter of circumstance, that happiness or misery are the result of stuff happening, whether it's winning the lottery or becoming disabled by disease.

But Dr. Peter Ubel, another study author, said happiness is more the result of underlying emotional resources that grow with time. “People get better at managing life's ups and downs, and the result is that as they age, they become happier – even though their objective circumstances, such as their health, decline.”

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