In a series update, we catch up with a group of New Yorkers over age 90: warm, cranky, funny and three years older than when we first met them.
Why older people are happier and what we can learn from them | Psyche Ideas
Around the world, happiness tends to peak later in life. It has more to do with balancing priorities than elderly wisdom
Learning From Older Adults: An Intergoal Compatibility Account for Successful Happiness Pursuit
Academic Abstract People want to pursue happiness but often fail, a phenomenon known as the paradox of pursuing happiness. The mechanisms underlying this paradox remain elusive. Age differences in happiness—specifically that older adults appear more successful in pursuing happiness (the emotion paradox of aging)—provide valuable insights into effective happiness pursuit. Drawing on this literature, we propose an intergoal compatibility account to interpret both paradoxes through the lens of intergoal interactions, an intuitively critical yet underexplored factor in existing interpretations. This account asserts that greater compatibility (fewer conflicts and greater facilitation) between happiness pursuit and other important personal goals enhances the effectiveness of happiness pursuit, and such compatibility can be enhanced through contextual influences (e.g., age-graded developmental tasks) and strategic self-regulation (e.g., goal adjustments). This account generates testable predictions and practical implications for enhancing happiness pursuit across the lifespan. Public Abstract Why do people often struggle to achieve happiness? And why are older adults happier than younger adults, even though they face more losses in life? While these questions have drawn extensive attention, they remain puzzling. A crucial yet insufficiently explored factor in successful happiness pursuit is intergoal compatibility —the extent to which the pursuit of happiness aligns or conflicts with other important personal goals. For younger adults, the demands of age-related developmental tasks (e.g., educational and career aspirations) often create conflicts with the pursuit of happiness, diminishing its effectiveness. Conversely, in older adults, happiness becomes more prioritized and compatible with other important personal goals, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of pursuing happiness. A lesson we can learn from older adults is to pursue happiness in ways compatible with other important personal goals.
Over nearly 80 years, Harvard study has been showing how to live a healthy and happy life
For nearly 80 years, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has been producing data and lessons on how to live longer, happier, and healthier lives.
The Global Decline in the Mental Health of the Young
One of the major findings in wellbeing research until recently was that happiness was U-shaped by age and unhappiness hump-shaped by age. There was a midlife crisis — a finding reported in well over 600 published papers using data on 145 countries. It was present in both developing and developed countries. And it was persistent over time. The finding of a peak in ill-being in midlife was consistent with Anne Case and Angus Deaton’s work on mortality and the so-called “deaths of despair.”1 In the US in particular and to a lesser extent in other countries, White prime-aged individuals without a college degree had high death rates from suicide, drug overdoses, and cirrhosis of the liver. Drug overdose deaths in the US, for example, peaked at midlife ages. In 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that overdose death rates per 100,000 by age rose from 13.5 for 15-to-24-year-olds to 45.6 for 25-to-34-year-olds and 60.8 for 35-to-44-year-olds, and then declined to 53.3 for 45-to-54-year-olds, 49.2 for 55-to-64-year-olds, and 14.7 for those over the age of 65.2 The morbidity data matched the mortality data.
The Rise of Alt-Pop Stars
Welcome to a messier and more daring era of pop music.
Despair and anxiety among UK youth
For years, the age profile of mental ill health was hump-shaped, peaking when people were in their late 40s or early 50s. But in recent years the mental health of the young has deteriorated to such an extent that, today, anxiety and despair peak when UK citizens are in their mid-20s. In most international surveys, adolescents in England, Scotland, and Wales are among the least happy in the world. This column focuses on one of the many likely contributory factors to young people’s mental health – the rise in social media, underpinned by the smartphone.
Opinion | You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch (Published 2016)
Ageism in the workplace is toxic, and it hurts everyone.
Just You Wait, by Chris Shiflett
On turning 50: a personal story about luck, curiosity, disillusionment, and hope.
The downside of being happy
Nobody likes to be sad, but it can have a powerful and positive effect.
Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Is For You.
Podcast Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 02/03/2026 · 1h 31m
Open source confronts its midlife crisis | The Observation Deck
Midlife is tough: the idealism of youth has faded, as has inevitably some of its fitness and vigor. At the same time, the responsibilities of adulthood have grown: the kids that were such a fresh adventure when they were infants and toddlers are now grappling with their own transition into adulthood – and you try to remind yourself that the kids that you have sacrificed so much for probably don’t actually hate your guts, regardless of that post they just liked on the ‘gram. Making things more challenging, while you are navigating the turbulence of teenagers, your own parents are likely entering life’s twilight, needing help in new ways from their adult children. By midlife, in addition to the singular joys of life, you have also likely experienced its terrible sorrows: death, heartbreak, betrayal. Taken together, the fading of youth, the growth in responsibility and the endurance of misfortune can lead to cynicism or (worse) drastic and poorly thought-out choices. Add in a little fear of mortality and some existential dread, and you have the stuff of which midlife crises are made…
“Something I will be most proud of when I’m 90”: How Jeff Bezos used to talk about The Washington Post, and what’s changed
Jeff Bezos used to talk about The Washington Post with real curiosity, and the things he said were interesting and specific. Over time, that changed.
Toronto seniors are feeling the heat | The Narwhal
This won’t be Ontario’s last hot summer, but many older adults and seniors still lack proper cooling spaces
