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Older Americans Have Never Been More Miserable
Submitted by Catey Hill via MarketWatch.com,
It all goes downhill after 30 — at least when it comes to happiness.
“Adults over 30 are less happy than their predecessors,” concludes a study published online Thursday in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, which examined happiness data from more than 50,000 adults, gleaned from the General Social Survey, carried out by NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan, independent research organization, which has collected information about American adults since 1972.
From 2010 to 2014, adults over 30 had an average happiness score of just 2.18, compared with 2.24 a decade ago. That’s significant considering happiness scores were measured on a tiny scale from just 1 to 3, with 1 being “not too happy” and 3 being “very happy.” (The data used five-year cohort periods so that single year fluctuations were smoothed out.)
What’s perhaps even more interesting is that, for the first time ever, adults ages 18 to 29 were happier than adults over 30. “The happiness advantage of mature adults over adolescents has dwindled,” write the authors of the study, entitled “More Happiness for Young People and Less for Mature Adults: Time Period Differences in Subjective Well-Being in the United States, 1972 - 2014.”
While the authors don’t know for sure why younger adults are happier than older ones for the first time in at least 40 years, they do have some theories. First, rising inequality may have more of an impact on the well-being of older adults than on younger ones, who are more apt to think they can overcome such things given that they have more time. And older adults may be more disappointed by the “increasingly unrealistic expectations for educational attainment, jobs, material goods and relationships,” the authors write, while younger adults still have hope for these things.
That said, there are plenty of studies that show we get happier as we get older (including a study published in 2011 in the journal Psychology and Aging, which revealed that “emotional experience improves with age”).
In general, women are slightly happier than men, the authors found - a finding that’s backed up by other research, including a worldwide survey by Gallup, which found that 40% of women were very happy, compared with only 34% of men. Researchers aren’t quite sure why this is, but the differences between the genders in terms of happiness tend to be fairly small.
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Shit, I'm happy, and also cynical and pessimistic.......
Meh! (That's the rebranding of the Jeb! camapign, and they wonder why this is, hah!)
I'm irritable, discontent, uncomfortable, cynical and sarcastic. No, my buddies of the Bill W show, Acceptance does NOT mean Approval.
Freedom is slavery.
Cynicism is happiness.
Or so the hipsters told me...
It is no coincidence that all of the very grateful people that I know are also the very happiest people I know.
Sadly, I agree that people are less grateful today, in general, and therefore less happy.
Happiness : Gratitude
I'll be grateful when I finally get everything to which I am entitled.
we'll gladly give you a title
that's what we do
that's all we do
They watched it slip away. It really started to accelerate in 1980.
Younger people were not alive or old enough to see it and they do not believe the stories of old people. Why should they? They let it slip away.
the old people are miserable
the young people are miserable
and the middle age are too fucking busy to stop and think
it's a trend that has been going on for a long time according to this book by a prof from Yale:
http://www.amazon.com/Loss-Happiness-Market-Democracies/dp/0300091060/re...
.."America is suffering not just from an economic recession, but from a social recession as well – a decline in social order and civic virtue, and rise in psychological impairment. In the last 30 years of monitoring the indicators of child well-being, never have the indicators looked so negative. It is sapping our very roots. There has been a tremendous erosion of the role of parents in the life of children. Across cultures, unstable families, conflict in families, divorce, death of a parent, and less affectionate parents are reliably linked to lower levels of average happiness and life satisfaction. Three million American children a year are neglected or physically or sexually abused. The condition of children in virtually all English speaking industrialized countries had worsened in the 80s, while it improved steadily in continental Europe and Japan.
.....
Strangely, relative pessimism about a country’s future can survive in the same mind with happiness. The criticality of these beliefs, their criticism of people, trends and institutions, is not painful for those who believe them; believing these critical things is not aversive; it does not make a person unhappy.
....
Recollection of feeling guilty as a child was associated with unhappiness later in life.
....
Americans, more than others, feed each other benign self-images – and become greatly concerned when these are insufficiently reassuring. They are also more concerned about being liked than are those in other nations.
"
Misery loves company.
Women are upbeat because society encourages hypergamy, so they think they've got that going for them (the whole "I'll concentrate on my career and find a 'nice man' when I'm 35").
Used to be that a generation set a goal for its childrens standard of living to be better than theirs was, but the Boomers apparently decided the kids in China should have a higher standard of living than their parents'.
The 18 to 29 group, on average, doesn't quite get it yet.
They live in a virtual word untouched by reality driving mommy or daddy's leased BMW immersed in all you can watch porn in the basement between fast food marathons in front of the XBox. Wish I were young dumb, fat...and happy.
You shouldn't have gotten old.
+1000 Wish I could have up voted that 10X
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WUUnc1M0TA
This would be the same group that is still collecting student loans, while the over 30 crowd is facing the impossibility of ever paying them off.
Yeah, i was thinking that too -- but it does start to bite in the mid-late 20s for most.
Agreed, that's part of it.
The other part is that that demographic is fucking retarded, bar none.
Bastiat nailed it. By age 30, one finally realizes that they cannot keep hiding in college and racking up worthless degrees and hundreds of thousands of debt. They realize how doomed their future is and adjust their mood accordingly.
This doesn't seem too mysterious.
Used to be the younger group was getting started in life, scraping by on a first job, starting a family, raising small children on not much money. Now that group is largely still living at home with mom and dad.
The older group used to be at a nice spot having moved up in their careers, better pay, older/more independent kids...maybe even out of the house by then. Could be on their second or third house, vs. a starter home. Now that group is likely to have younger children (if any) since many went to college and/or got some kind of career going first, possibly still saddled with student debt at a time when they should be well along on building a nest egg for retirement, just getting that first house, or maybe they lost the first house. And since the age group generally has more responsibility (aging parents and/or kids) they are more likely to be paying attention.
As far as women being happier than men, most likely has something to do with women being more financially independent and having job prospects at least as good as ever since male dominated jobs (manufacturing, construction, now oil & gas) have been hit harder.
Oh, I see. Trudging the path of happy destiny ain't good enough for you, huh? Just kidding. I am grateful to God in a big way but watching the shitshow everyday has taken the skip out of my step. Not that I ever really skipped. It's just a phrase! I can explain!!!!
Now we know why congress wants "cheaper meds"....
I fully acknowledge the FEDs omnipotent power on this earth, they will win here until the very final and last days, no use in fighting it. I thought I was smart, cute and clever, only to relaize now how very wrong I was. I should just give all my possesions away, I'd rather cry now and get it over with because let's face it, they will suck me dry over time anyways. Yes, I am 37 and miserable. Pretty much all of my friends are over 50 because I hate the youth of this nation. Older people are the only ones who are not obsessed with tech, sports and other gay ass shit. When they pass away I will truely be sad.
Obsessed with fantasy sports and watching sports = bad
Obsessed with participating, being active and coaching sport = good
There's not many pure things left in this world, and kids playing games with/against each other is one of them, IMO.
I refuse to get a job because they made me so mad that I don't want to participate in thier system. I don't want kids becuase it's helps GDP numbers and this world is so bad I can't imagine bringing anythign into it. I don't want to buy a house because it's a scam and helps them. I can't stand real estate, because it's anything but real. I want to just drop out of society. When you know the playbook and can see the future, it's hard not to be upset, even with Jesus in your life. My poor wife.
Didn't know I set up my response to encourage reds like that. LOL, ZH rookie move.
EVERYTHING that I do that is right, good and sound gets punished. Doesn't matter if it's financial investments, good deeds, going to church, making decisions based on critical thinking and logic. For everything I do, I get punished by society.
But no matter how the satanic system tries to beat the good out of you, the fact remains that you still actually benefit from thinking critically and so on (and that the abusers suffer when their victims finally start thinking and smartly adapting).
Don't sweat the society of trained victims that surrounds us: be smart and your personal life should be great.
After all, if like me you don't care about iCrap and other lame status symbols, then your cost of life should be ultra cheap, at which point life is actually really easy. Our society is deeply disappointing, but life can still be very good!
If society refuses to improve itself, then just continue to improve yourself and your TRUE quality of life, and leave the suckers behind! :)
All good advice, except for the my life should be ultra cheap. NO, I have to pay rent and buy food still all while our money is being debased. My debt is extreemly low and my bills are low, but it still costs a ton to live and maintain a decent life. Also my investments that I know are right are being destroyed due to fraud, so I'm becoming poorer faster. At this point I'd have been better off to be a total sheep, loser Merican. I'd at least be happier and richer.
None of those sheeple are particularly happy: they are image-driven and have learned the simple lesson of how one benefits by trying to appear happy and successful, to make others feel jealous.
But as far as retirement is concerned, we are screwed and it is frustrating. I am 43 and should be saving for my retirement, but I can't due to rampant fraud and instead I am planning to work 'till I'm 80 at least. (But still I enjoy being a boxing / muay thai coach, and used to work in IT, which was also interesting).
What's a decent life? I don't drink, don't have a car (I bike everywhere, even in Canada's winter), I have a decent apartment and eat great (but CHEAP) vegan food.
My cost of life is about 20K/yr right now, but after I move to a cheaper neighborhood in Montreal and make a few other adjustments, it should go down to 15K - that is easy to make in a year, but ya still gotta do some real work for it!!!
This is exactly the problem today. Playing by the "old" rules gets you fucked over by sociopaths from every possible angle.
I encourage you to unplug from this society and go off-grid and be with those you love and trust. You owe this current society nothing, since all it's done is take.
If you don't have the option to be with those you trust, do what I'm doing and just slowly go rogue and off the radar.
I am doign exactly that. I got an RV on 38 acres at my Pastor's place. I still rent a house, which I may say fuck it soon and live fulltime out there.
Jesus was a comic book superhero before Constantine and Rome turned him into a human being.
there is a great book about that fairy tale (was voted one of the best books of the year 3 years ago):
http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-First-Three-Thousand-Years/dp/0143118...
Jesus was a comic book superhero before Constantine and Rome turned him into a human being.
Hope you see this. I'm you and you are me. Feel the same including feeling sorry for my wife to have to live with me...
I see it. I'm glad I'm not the only, sometimes it feels that way. At least I'm in TX. I need to move to a very rural area. I'm thinking unincorporated.
Just wait till they're 55 and get their first job.
at Wal-Mart.
It's hard not to be miserable when bitches like this hold public office:
Senator McCaskill Has A Message For Menhttps://youtu.be/-yzGA_glnkM
Sure it's satire, but you know she believes it. I look forward to eight years of Shrillary. Men will have been fully neutered by the end of her term.
US will be kaput after 8 yrs of Hellary Clintoris.
Then a black ho (Kanya West formerly known as Kanye) should normally be elected and the whole WORLD will be KAPUT.
And yet the people of Missouri voted for this twat. All we can do is tune them out. In another eight years, hillary will be worth her weight in cheese.
Men will be fully ignored by the end of her term.
Neutered, not so much. Like the markets and the dollar, the unwind of decades of artificial restraints on men might not be pretty.
I was happy, until people started calling folks over 30 "older". C'mon, man. Don't you know 40 is the new 25?
-Argenta
25 is the age when most kids finish highschool so you've got about 5 years where you're welcome... after those first 4 years where they look for a job...
A few years back, I worked as a marketing manager and had to create the image that we where a company that also gave older people above 40 a chance to get a career in the company.
They actually hired 2 people above 40 to prove their point.
6 months later they where fired again because they where to expensive...
Now I'm 39 and that's also why I started my own company because in this world you're to old pretty fast unless you're the boss.
Old as in expensive.
It all come to this:
A company hires you and promises you everything later down the road. Just a few more year for that raise kid! Get better and later on you'll get that promotion and that raise!!! Promise!!! NOW WORK YOUR ASS OFF!!!!
And when they can't delay that raise... when they run out of excuses... when you put your foot down...
Can I see you now? Please close the door....
I had at one point considered the video game industry for a career (yes, sadly I was that naive). Quickly found out that because there are many unskilled people who also think they want that career that mostly you just get churned up and spit out. "Burn out" after 3 years they call it.
More like "used up".
As a kid, I tought that after every videogame there would be a message telling me I won 10K :)
Never happened but that didn't stop me from playing :)
And my first company, when Flash was still a big deal, I made online games like there was no tomorrow.
Thank god I got out and sold my company just in time. Now there's about 400 webdevelopping companies in my city alone.
Ignorance is bliss.
I am happy and well over 30 ... I could be happy living on a dirt floor and eating grubs. Probably not my wife, though.
Wives tend to be like that.
I'm not married but saw this exchange recently:
A guy was helping my brother, running phone/internet cables and made some random remarks "The Inspector won't like that. Its against code blah blah blah"
His wife shows up out of nowhere "You should be an Inspector!"
LOL.
me to but my wife keeps cleaning the floors....
I even got a argument about that a few months back. That she didn't have to do all that all of the time!
I don't remember how that arguement spinned out of control, but ever since, she won't sort out my socks anymore and always throws all of them in a laundry basket for me to sort out...
EVERY MORNING IT NOW TAKES ME 5 MINUTES TO FIND A FITTING PAIR!!!
And socks are weird, even those that match don't always look the same!
gotta buy me some new once that are all the same... but she keeps buying me all different kinds of socks whenever I say that...
The first few months I tought it would blow over by itself but it seems she's pretty persistent about those socks...
Women get pretty intense about their nesting behaviours.
Another case where Marketwatch misses the obvious. Look at the rapidly rising old person employment during ZIRP since they're getting near zero percent return on their retirement nest egg thanks to ZIRP. Think that may be a reason for discontent? Duh!
It's all about expectations.
Coming from a shack with raw sewage running in the streets, I have to say America seems pretty nice.
We have screwed up the world's economy with wars, there are no jobs and so people cannot progress through their lives in normal ways with normal satisfactions.
How can we be surprized with radicalism?
Our governments are killing civilization as an unfortunate side-effect of kleptocracy and oligarchy and crony-capitalism. We ordinary people are the ones who break first, our elites better reverse course soon. They never do, I think.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/were-still-going-to-be-here/
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/a-measure-of-propagandas-p...
Nothing a nice big war couldn't fix.
The only happy people I know of work for the government. To them things are great. They get to retire early and collect nice pensions around the metro areas.
I know lots of happy people. They're pseudo-farmers, and they were killing it on Wall Street for 5-10 years until they decided to 'get out of the rat race.'
They forgot that they are the F'ing rats.
That reminded me of poor Neal Kaskari, who after saving the world on a napkin, had to take time off to address his inner child and go build a log cabin.
Life's easier when you have no monetary issues to worry about.
They make their vig, leave, and then plant row after row of righteous indignation.
pods
Some reasons why older Americans are miserable:
Life expectancy in US is 78.8 - ranking it 27th out of 34 countries Switzerland tops the list with an average life expectancy of 82.8
Capitalism and mortality: Death rate soars for middle-aged US workers translates into 96,000 more deaths since 1999 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/04/pers-n04.html …
I am not sure about the rest of you, but I am looking forward to the wet cat food years.
pods
If you're lucky enough, that is.
Depends. I am entitled to Fancy Feast, none of that Friskies crap.
I am not unhappy, but I am in a boiling rage and fury every minute of every day over the insane policies and at the regime leaders who impose them.
Well, as a software developper who learned the hard way that we aren't allowed to compete with Google and the like, I am frustrated: I know I can't create what I want to create, because it would do good things and get in the way of all the bad things TPTB want to keep doing.
Similarly, everyone understands that you can't be too good a musician with too good a message: you will be quickly killed by the MIC...
And so on with most of the great things we all want to do (ex: build clean power plants, etc.) - it is all forbidden, and the fuckers in charge will sneakily gang up on anyone that is too EFFECTIVE at being good.
The only good that is allowed is ineffective good, where you rope along other fools into wasting your time and resources to achieve practically nothing. FUCK THAT!
---
As human beings, we all need to feel like we are building cool stuff, but THEY won't let us. It is very frustrating, but what can you do? Fucking power elites have the power and they abuse it. Luckily though, they can't stop us from still improving ourselves, so at least there is still that!
That being said, I pity our miserable elite: they are all MK-ULTRA'd mind-break victims who are being used and abused by others like themselves. They are miserable and so they try to make everything else miserable as well. Hopefully we'll be able to help them free themselves soon, to break the cycle.
They are getting sodomized on the regular. No thanks!
Don't even get me started about Facebook or any of the other make believe companies gathering up nothing but data which the people in power need because they have infinite money so they throw it at whichever Jew gets it for them.
This shows women are more retarded than men. The more superficial (idiot) you are, the easier is to be happy.
Now lets see the ethnic graph. Guess which Obama fans will be the happiest?
Here's a hint:
http://www.thepornster.com/video/470/black-ho-playing-with-dildos-in-bot...
One other causal factor for women being happier than men is the scam referred to as "child support," which props up irresponsible baby mommas with blatantly unlawful wealth transfers from the men they hate.
Who couldn't be happy about that?
Other than the men being victimized. Who are on the bottom of that graph.
A suggestion: don't fucking have anything on your name. Leave/put everything on one of your parent's. Is safer that way.
Divorce?
No problem: Ho, pack your stuff and move to your folk's. No trespassing on my folks home. Or if you cough up enough they might rent you that place above the garage.
That is a trap easily avoided thathingcanfly. Just don't have kids - birth control for the win. If you are really quite determined to stay clear you could even get snipped.
The problem with that plan is that it flies in the face of human nature. It's in our programming to reproduce. Any system that punishes one for conforming to human nature is evil. Communism is a great example. Divorce on demand coupled with no chance for the father to get custody coupled with child support payments is another.
Child support is such a fucking scam. I got hauled into court her in AZ after not having seen the ex for over twenty years...now I have this judge telling me to a)find a job, or I will throw you in jail and b) I dont care that you have not worked in three years, pay her with a credit card, or I will throw you in jail. All over a 27 yo 'child' who is not even mine, and no one gives a fuck about that inconvenient truth.
As (some) Americans age, they begin to realize how fucked up the human race is.
They begin to realize it's futile to attempt to change anything for the better.
It's as if this is some 'grand experiment' and there's some type of manipulation going on behind the scenes.
This sucker's going down.
I am 68...the above comments are exactly right. After you flush the propaganda from yourself and take a good look at humanity....it ain't pretty.
No, you can't change anything. But you can "be the change". And you can influence the young.
The human race really is fucked.
For me, this realization struck when I visited the Auschwitz concentration camp. You see these horrible things people have done to each other, and think "never again" - but you look at the world, and you see basically the same things happening now, in this day and age, in various parts of the world, to varying degrees.
Humans are a nasty, nasty species. They're destroying each other, they're destroying the earth, and then the earth will ultimately destroy them.
Somebody once told me "When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around."
Don't forget what the evil jewish bankers did to humanity.
You do know that the Soviets built that, right?
The "Holocaust" was nothing but a ginned up typhus outbreak. Killed guards and locals too.
Jews were interned for the EXACT SAME REASON we interned the Japanese. Only in the case of Germans, the Jews had actually attempted a Communist takeover a few years before, where the Japs hadn't done a single thing against the US.
Of note is the fact that this post would get me arrested in Europe.
Being deported from Europe while they let millions of unknown Muslims and blacks flood the continent would be such an honor.
I'm glad someone here is informed about the holohoax.
This is not the leftist website you are looking for. Try alternet.
FTFY
Don't think everything is as fucked up (yet) as your shithole.
18 to 29 are happy sexting all day long. When you try to look beyond that, it's all messed up.
It doesn't matter The Dow is now green mother fuckers!!
BTFD and be happy!
Maybe Asshole Krugman will write an op-ed about this to.
DEBT IS GOOD
Crap, I was happy...now I want to...I called the suicide hotline and the guy who answered was from Pakistan. He wanted to know if I knew how to drive a truck.
I am a hapyy woman and I try to make each day count for something. However, I am also an enragred person when I see the stupid, wasteful spending at every level of government. I worked hard for my $ and it just galls me to see how ridiculously it is spent. One expample is the DOT now micro managing my driving. Every turn of the road, street, lane, highway, byway and Freeway has 5 to 10 chevron signs and a speed limit sign placed less than one second apart. One lane streets have 2 stoplights at the interesection. Blinking solar powered lights to tell me to go 20mph near a crosswalk where there are seldom any pedestrians, huge electronic freeway signs have speed limit signs for each lane as well as 2 giant "Reduced Speed Limit" signs placed beside each of these. What for? I can't drive anywhere without seeing the waste and the tyranny at every turn of the road.
Move away from the urban ghetto life. Get away from the big city lights... There are still some rural places where you can see the stars at night and engage interesting human beings by day...
Young ppl are always optimistic....man are they in for a nut kick when they turn 30.
Additionally, that is when things start to hurt. I type with a bad back as I write this, and I am a healthy young 30s.
In my late 20s I started going gray and sometimes when I got hurt I just stayed hurt from then on. Ain't nothing good about getting older except knowledge and money/resources.
Older people are less happy because of the modern progressives trying everything they can do to destroy our society. If you are over 30 and see stories like Mizzou or laws allowing trans-gender boys in girls bathrooms, does that make you happy?
No family. No children. You can be poor and happy if you have a loving family. Whites have been convinced to love money more than family and even themselves. It's fucking sad. I was a victim of this poison at one time myself. Now I would gladly give up every penny and possession for my family without hesitation.
And adults ages 18 to 29 are dumber than a box of rocks.
31 is "older" now? I'm 63, work part time, don't have much money, but one thing I am is happy.