RD&T’s contributing writer, Andrea Brandt, Ph.D., shares 4 keys to increase happiness as you age.
Through your youth and early adulthood, you accumulate many varied experiences, both good and bad. You make false starts, turn corners, try new things, meet new people, and every day seems to abound with possibilities. By age 50, you’ve likely accumulated the wisdom needed to place yourself on more solid ground with a clearer sense of where your life is going. And then, in our youth-obsessed society, you’re suddenly labeled “old.” Everything changes.
Society often sends the message that old age is just a waiting room for the end—either elderly people are weak, sick, and irrelevant or that old age is all about meaningless recreation. You start digesting these messages, and you may feel yourself disappearing. As you get closer to retirement, or you’re forced to retire, the media invites you to imagine your life post-50 or 60 as one of leisure, where you no longer have to work toward a goal, put out effort, or grow as a person.
