I turned 40 last week. It has caused me to think about how I view time with relation to happiness. How do time and age impact us?
Over the Hill
Sometimes 40 is referred to as being “over the hill.” Forty falls right in the middle of the average life span. When you look at one’s capability during life it could look like a bell curve; we come quite incapable as infants and often leave in a pretty weak state as well. There is truth to this observation of physical capability over the life span. But is capability the best predictor of happiness?
If so, my happiness looks like it’s on a downward trend. I wanted to test and challenge this notion. I thought about the 3 factors that currently bring me the most happiness; my relationships, my self development and my faith. In order to look at the intersection of age and happiness I graphed these factors with relationship to age. How are these happiness factors influenced by time and age?
1. Relationships and Time
Relationships are fundamental to happiness, and one of the most significant parts of relationships and family is time. However, measuring relationships by years can be deceptive—this is because our relationships are time weighted differently throughout the life span. If we look at relationships in terms of time over a lifetime it shows us an interesting trend.
In-Person Time Left with Parents and Siblings
Inspired by the article, “The Tail End” on the blog “Wait But Why?”, I decided to do some math about in-person time left with my parents. If I think about my time left with my parents (assuming they live until 80), I have around 20 years left. But since I live across the world in China, actually our in-person time is only about and average of 10 days or less a year. That means I really only have around 200 in-person days left with them. That certainly changes the perspective.
What’s even more intriguing is to look at time with parents in terms of percentage. Inspired by a fascinating blog post called “Wait But Why?” I calculated the percentage of total in-person time left with my parents. The grand total: 3%.
This is how I calculated: I spent about 18 years living at home with my parents before I graduated from high school. That adds up to about 6,620 days. Including summers and holidays, I’ve spent an additional 696 days since then with them. If we estimate that they will live until 80 (average life span), and I spend an average of 10 days a year with them for the rest of their lives, that means I have about 200 days left. Here’s what interesting; by the time I graduated I had spent 88% of my time with my parents. Now I have spent 97% and I have 3% left.
Looking at my time left with my siblings is similar—it’s only about 5% of the in-person time I have left.
Relationship Take Away #1
Realizing I’m down to only 3%-5% of total time left makes me thing differently about my time with my parents and siblings. I want to make my time count when we’re face-to-face! And, I want to find more non-in-person times and ways to connect.
In-Person Time with Husband and Children
Looking at the time I have left with my husband and children is fascinating as well. My husband and I have been married for 15 years. I estimate my husband and I have about 72% of our time left. We have practically ¾ of our time left together.
I estimate I have about 40% of my time left with my oldest daughter. I have 85% of my time left with my youngest. (This is assuming I live to 80, my kids leave home at 18, come back for summers, and visit an average of 10 days a year.)
Relationship Take Away #2
On the days I feel like I’ve failed as a mother or a wife—it’s hopeful to realize there is lots of time left. Our relationship isn’t signed, sealed and delivered.
2. Self-Development and Time
Self-development is heavy during the first couple decades of life. We spend full time going to school and have the time to practice instruments, sports and other talents. However, what’s interesting is that we tend to laminate what we’ve learned as who we are and define ourselves based on what we learned and developed during that time. What we studied in college, what musical talents we cultivated, how our family of origin raised us, all become how we define ourselves and what we often live on for the next 60+ years. Why is that? That period of time is only a small amount of years compared to all the years we live. Why do we limit ourselves?
Time to Develop Talents
I spent 10 years taking piano lessons. Hopefully I have at least 40 years left. I could become way better than I am now. Now I know how to do more with less time because I know how to work more efficiently. I can focus better, use more aptitudes, and I’m more motivated to learn because someone else isn’t dragging me to do it.
Time to Study
I spent 4 years studying at BYU and getting a bachelor’s degree. I have 40 years left. Obviously there are some other limiting factors, but in terms of time alone, there is enough time to get 10 more bachelor’s degrees, 20 more masters degrees, or several PhDs. If I have time to get that many more, one doesn’t seem so limiting or imposing.
Self Development Take Away #1
In terms of time, there’s no need to feel limited by what I did in my first 20 or even 40 years of my life! There is plenty of time to keep learning, and re-invent myself multiple times.
Time to Travel
Likewise, new experiences look even more optimistic for the next 40 years than for the first 40.
I love to travel. I started traveling outside the US when I was about 16 years old. I have visited 32 countries in 24 years. If I average 2 countries a year, assuming I am able to travel until 75, that means I could visit 70 more countries over double what I’ve been able to do in my first 40 years!
Time to Enjoy Good Things
I only discovered gelato in my adult life. I’ve probably only had it a total of 40 times so far in my life. If I ate it once a month from here on out, I would have 480 more times of eating gelato. That allows me a lot of time to be a connoisseur of the best flavors.
Self Development Take Away #2
Not only is there time for continued learning, and experiencing–we often have more capacity and more focus in our second half of life.
3. Faith and Time
Faith in God is an important aspect of my happiness and well-being. In fact studies show it significantly impacts the happiness level of many people around the world. It’s interesting to consider how faith intersects with time.
Our faith is a bit like the stock market. Like money in the stock market, we put a little bit of belief in, hoping it will grow. The more we put in, the more we get back. However, even large investments usually take time to grow and give good returns. It’s time that is the essential element to large returns. Just as the economy ebbs and flows–our faith may too. However like the stock market long periods of time almost always show growth if we stay engaged.
Faith Accumulates Over Time
Faith and time looks fascinating when mapped. If you consider all the experiences of your life and how they intersect with your faith—the longer you live, the stronger your faith can become.
Faith is believing in something you can’t see—however the more we believe and act on it, the more evidence we find of it. We have amassed a lot of evidence by 80.
Faith and Time Take-Away
Assuming we continue to keep our faith in a place it’s growing–the second half of life can be a time of significant growth and enjoyment from amassed evidence of things we believe. It can make a case for patience with faith as well. The ebbs and flows are part of a larger growth pattern.
The U Curve of Happiness Over a Lifetime
I am intrigued by a book by Jonathan Rauch called, The Happiness Curve, Why Life Gets Better After 50. In his book, Rauch reviews data from over 300 people to determine life satisfaction data by decade. He also interviewed experts in the field. He found that in terms of happiness, life doesn’t look like a bell curve. Instead it looks the opposite—like a “U” curve.
There is other data to back up his claim. According to a Gallup World Poll, people tend to be happy into their early thirties. Their least happy time was in their late thirties and forties and then they return to happiness in their fifties and happiness continues climbing through the other decades of life.
What if we have it all upside down? What if it’s not “over the hill” at 40 with the best behind us? What if instead, it’s a U shaped curve–with the happiest time because we have all the happiness looking back and all the prospects looking forward? Or what if it’s simply a line of increasing happiness over time as we progress and grow?
This can certainly be true if we live deliberately and think about time in a way that helps us use it for happiness. We can make the most of the time we have with people we love knowing it’s limited, we can continue to learn, develop and experience things in our later decades of life instead of relying on our first few decades, and we can note the evidence of our faith over time as a way of growing closer to God. Time and age are friends of happiness.
How Do Time and Happiness Intersect for You?
What do you believe about your age and happiness looking backward?
What do you believe about your age and happiness looking forward?
What are the significant happiness factors in your life and how does your perspective on time change when they are graphed over the life cycle?
