Hang in there...

Markets got you down?  Too much/little rain?  Have a political headache?

Just wait.

The telephone survey, carried out in 2008, covered more than 340,000 people nationwide, ages 18 to 85, asking various questions about age and sex, current events, personal finances, health and other matters.

The survey also asked about “global well-being” by having each person rank overall life satisfaction on a 10-point scale, an assessment many people may make from time to time, if not in a strictly formalized way.

Finally, there were six yes-or-no questions: Did you experience the following feelings during a large part of the day yesterday: enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness. The answers, the researchers say, reveal “hedonic well-being,” a person’s immediate experience of those psychological states, unencumbered by revised memories or subjective judgments that the query about general life satisfaction might have evoked.

The results, published online May 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were good news for old people, and for those who are getting old. On the global measure, people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.

In measuring immediate well-being — yesterday’s emotional state — the researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to 85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the low point of our early 50s.

Other experts were impressed with the work. Andrew J. Oswald, a professor of psychology at Warwick Business School in England, who has published several studies on human happiness, called the findings important and, in some ways, heartening. “It’s a very encouraging fact that we can expect to be happier in our early 80s than we were in our 20s,” he said. “And it’s not being driven predominantly by things that happen in life. It’s something very deep and quite human that seems to be driving this.” [More]

But on the other hand, while I have no strong feeling one way or another about Al and Tipper Gore, they are the same ages as Jan and I, so their breakup was oddly disconcerting for folks who are planning a 40th anniversary cruise.

One marriage researcher breezily writes off this emerging trend as nothing to sweat.

Many stories ended with some rendition of, “It’s my time and if I don’t take it now, I never will.” No matter whether they had spent years gearing up for divorce or decided on the spur of the moment after one minor disagreement too many, few had regrets. Men who wanted new companionship easily found it, and women who wanted new partners had them within two years.

Divorce is easier now. Our retirement years are longer and healthier. Both men and women often have enough money to make changes. And the stigma of divorce has long since faded. A century ago, Elizabeth Cady Stanton called it a “social earthquake.” But several decades later, Margaret Mead thought every woman needed three husbands: one for youthful sex, one for security while raising children and one for joyful companionship in old age. In the 21st century, Margaret Drabble, the British novelist, calls life after divorce “the third age.” The heroine of her novel “The Seven Sisters” says, “Our dependents have died or matured. For good and ill, we are free.”

So let us not feel shocked or sad about the end of Al and Tipper Gore’s marriage. Let us instead wish them well, and hope that they might enjoy their third age, individually and in peace. [More]

I can envision no such liberation in forsaking bonds of love and fidelity. As well, it might be best to avoid making long term judgments from the behavior patterns of the Boomer generation.  Frankly, I hope our example fades quickly.

Still we are going to be uncovering all kinds of surprising consequences of growing older, as technology extends our lives. What a shame if we allow self-centered character to color those years with regret.

I know all about your standards*...

Will Wilkinson, arguably one of the ablest minds I read, especially in matters of measuring public happiness and making policies thinks he knows from marriage.

But annoyances and disappointments suffered in the process of realizing fundamental conditions of a decent society don’t call into question the desirability of those conditions. All this vexation is a very, very small price to pay for equality. For men, it is a very, very small price to pay for the opportunity to share a life with a peer, a full partner, rather than with a woman limited by convention and straitened opportunity to a more circumscribed and subordinate role in life. Sexual equality has created the possibility of greater exactness and complementarity in matching women to men. That is, in my book, a huge gain to men. But equality does raise expectations for love and marriage. The prospect of finding a true partner, rather than someone to satisfactorily perform the generic role of husband or wife, leaves many of us single and searching for a good long time. But this isn’t about delaying adulthood, it’s about meeting higher standards for what marriage and family should be. [More]

Of course, Will is tragically young (36) and from the bio I have read and the above words I assume he is not hitched.

Permit me to interject some comments from a marriage veteran of 38 years (143 husband years). 

First, it is likely ineffective to consider mating and dating as essentially an interviewing problem.  While Will is "refining his standards" the number of eligible possible mates declines rapidly. In fact, the longer he goes without developing a sense of compromise or leniency, the less desirable he becomes, I would hazard.

Marriages are made, not discovered. The important thing is to get started, because the great secret our modern humor and competitiveness has almost removed from general knowledge is the power of a long marriage to lift the lives of the participants - even as they build it moment by moment, action by action.  To be sure, not all do, but when you go to enough 50th Anniversaries, you begin to sense why fussy shopping is not the answer.

We are all constantly changing.  Married folks have the chance to have those changes occur in an environment that encourages cooperation and caring, not self-obsession.  To be sure, libertarians are by definition a little self-interested, but that should make them wary of how hard marriage will be  for them, and hence more inclined to get on with the hard work of setting aside self-interest for the sake of another.

So, while I give him credit for a well-crafted and impeccably thought out post on the current mating scene, it's really not hard to laugh in his clueless young face about why this venerable institution has persisted and how he is missing the whole point - as well as the manifold benefits.

Truly Useful Marriage Advice: Exhibit A...

After 36 or 37 some odd years (I'm pretty sure it was 1971 or so) of marriage, I've got it figured out. And I think it's important for us battle-scarred veterans to share the secrets to achieving that exhausted, sullen stalemate that passes for marital success.

Just kidding! - It's actually whirlwind adventure of passion and excitement that accelerates with every precious passing moment. Sorta.

So here is the first of what I feel will be valuable information scraps - especially for you marriage newbies who haven't yet ritualized your marital habits and behaviors:

Shouldn't we get some gas?

Even with cell phones and self-service stations every quarter-mile, women tend to worry about running out of gas. Shortly after descending past 3/4 , your spouse may lean over every 3 miles of so and make an odd, but disagreeable little noise. And then near hysteria when the FUEL LIGHT IS ON!!!

Men know instinctively that there is always a "reserve" gallon or two to get them where they need to go, and if you don't use the whole tank, what's the point in having one that big to begin with?

Behold, some powerful support for our reasoning: tankonempty.com Not only does this seriously nearly-scientific site allow you to look up experiences real men have had in real cars like yours, it contains heart-warming stories of NOT running out of gas for you to share with your anxious mate to address her concerns in a adult and positive manner:

The Accord That Doesn't Quit

I drove my 1990 Accord EX 4dr with about 5 miles from arriving to work when the fuel light came on. I then drove 55 miles from work to within about a few miles of my home and went straight to the gas station. I calculated and it came to be 60 miles with the fuel light on. This took place during the spring in the month of May which was on a day that was 88 degrees! With a 17 gallon tank, my record was for that 471 miles on one tank of gas! However, my record is 509 miles on one tank of gas from Somerset, NJ to Boston, MA and back home with 4 people and luggage! The Accord is the car to have in a gas crisis!

I don't know about you - but that's the kind of story I find riveting!

No thanks are necessary. I just want to help.