Acceptance releases everything to be, what it already is.
An impressive new study, representing a sample of about 28,000 Americans age 18 to 88, interviewed from 1972 to 2004, has found that the happiest Americans are the oldest.
The study’s author, Yang Yang, says:
“The good news is that with age comes happiness. Life gets better in our perception as we age.”
The author says a certain amount of stress in old age is inevitable, including aches and pains and the deaths of loved ones and friends, but our elders generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults. They have also learned to lower their expectations and accept with pride their lifetime achievements. One interviewee said, “It’s fine that I was a damn good schoolteacher, and not a Nobel prize winner!”
This research is important on a number of different levels. For one, it dispels the beliefs which spread fear among those of us in our middle years, that aging is just a depressing downhill trudge into oblivion.
Part of the reason midlife is so difficult is that it brings up our fears about aging. We fear that life is almost over and we still have not yet attained our long held goals.
This study shows that with age, many of us learn to live more comfortably with ourselves, and accept our human imperfections and frailties. We stop comparing ourselves to others, and begin to appreciate what we have.
I believe midlife is when we truly begin this process of acceptance. We change what we need to, but also learn to accept ourselves and our fate on a deeper level.
Midlife is difficult because it may be the first time we have seriously confronted our own mortality, but that is also exactly why it is so significant. We begin the process of asking ourselves: Is this all there is to life? Is this as good as it gets? And we change things, if we find the answers to these questions unsatisfactory.
This study is the best example of one of my favorite lines from Maggie Crane’s book Amazing Grays:
Don’t believe everything you think!
Thoughts arise in our minds that may very well have nothing to do with reality. From thoughts come fears about aging and your future. Challenge your perceptions about aging (and everything else!) Don’t assume that just because you believe it, that it is true.
Aging today is different than 50 years ago and, hopefully, we’ve all got a few good years left! Try to take advantage of these extra years we have in the middle of our lives to follow your dreams!
