You Can Reshape the "U Shape Graph" of Your Midlife Life Satisfaction.

When I celebrated my 50th birthday, I experienced an unfamiliar feeling. I am not the type to be an outgoing partier, but on the other hand, I enjoy modestly celebrating special occasions. It was natural for me to feel a ripple of excitement on my 50th birthday, but I felt mixed emotions that I had difficulties identifying. I felt perplexed and puzzled about the reason for the turbulent currents of sensations that I was experiencing

I believe the explanation is that I was entering the clashing of two opposite states of mind. I needed to verify whether I was still on the path of growth and decide if my objectives were still focused on missions for making progress. Or did I just start my journey toward regression? I needed to determine whether I was taking my first stride in the direction of a shutdown. Was a new era unfolding, and would I be traveling down a one-way path of deterioration??Was I still propelled by the incentive of daily soaring and achievements, or will the future require me to concentrate on how to perform a graceful landing?

?In 1965 Elliott Jaques,?a Canadian psychoanalyst and social scientist coined the phrase "Midlife Crisis". He was convinced that people reaching midlife approach conditions and situations making them prone to vulnerability and crisis.??

?The 21st century introduced the theory of the "U shape of life satisfaction".?This theory claims happiness and life satisfaction throughout one's life can be described by a "U-shaped graph" marking the beginning of Midlife as the minimum point when happiness and life satisfaction reaches a record low.

David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald (2008) claim that "humans experience a midlife psychological ‘low’. The decline in well-being is apparently substantial and not minor." This approach was disputed by some researchers (for instance, Whitbourne. S.K. (2018)), but it seems that the "U shape" of life satisfaction is becoming an excepted theory more and more. In 2020, David Blanchflower published another wide data-supported paper that includes the statement: "Using data on 500,000 randomly sampled Americans and West Europeans, the paper found that holding other factors constant, a typical individual’s happiness reaches its minimum on both sides of the Atlantic for both males and females in middle age."

A legitimate question is how do you collect data to support the information trying to compose a graph that describes lifetime happiness? How do you follow one's changes in the rate of happiness for over decades?

David Blanchflower agreed that it should be a longitudinal process, meaning you should follow many individuals’ opinions over decades and register the changes. The problem is, how do you find participants that will take part in the research for numerous decades??And maybe those who will agree to participate in the research might come from a unique segment, causing biased results.

I will add that it might not be realistic to expect a researcher to invest the majority of his professional career in gathering data that will probably be published after he retires.?

The alternative is to take a "snapshot" picture and assume that with large data sampling, gathering responses from all ages at once will represent the assumed behavior of what most individuals feel throughout the various ages.

The first problem is, says who? Can we truly adopt this assumption without a doubt? Maybe being born in the 70s made it harder to be satisfied for some reason? Maybe the usage and meaning of "happiness" and life "satisfaction" changes over the years? Maybe the changes the world is going through affect happiness? Living as a young adult with social media can reduce life disappointments which might be a major element that today’s midlife adults never had the privilege to experience as young adults.

?????????Let us assume one's life satisfaction behaves like a "U" shape graph, with midlife being the period when life satisfaction is at its lowest.?

?We are left with the fundamental “why” questions. The first "why" reflects what causes happiness to deteriorate more and more as people leave young adulthood and approach midlife. But maybe the real intriguing thought is, why do happiness and life satisfaction excel after midlife and improve more and more the older and weaker people get?

Assuming that life happiness and satisfaction exist in a "U shape," we can wonder if this is a positive or negative situation. Is this a phenomenon that is best to eliminate? If an objective is set to moderate the slope from one’s early 20s to late 40s, maybe we should start a "pension tax". If you are not familiar with the pension tax, it is probably because I just made it up. Assume a tax on income will be calculated by taking the individual’s net salary and dividing it by twice the employee's age. From the result, we subtract 1%, then we will have a tax with a percentage that decreases yearly. When the individual reaches the age of 50, the tax will equal 0%. From then on, the direction will reverse, and throughout the remaining years of employment, workers start receiving payments back from the taxes paid over the previous years. This way, we can raise satisfaction the closer we approach midlife. I am not serious about the tax, but on second thought, maybe this isn't such a bad idea.

I believe the shape of life satisfaction is secondary. Whether it is a "U" shape or an "M" shape, or no defined shape at all, midlife is a stage in life that has unique qualities and situations. It requires actively adopting new daily methods, refreshing one’s outlook, and reconstructing the pattern of life to ensure that such a valuable period in life has the potential to shine as the prime years of life.

A conscious preparation and plan will promote the fulfillment of midlife and assist in reaching the unfolded midlife potential while also eliminating the chances of collapsing into a state of crisis. Midlife weaves together new heaps and new hoes, letting the hoes dominate, paving the way to deal with an undesirable crisis. All the while, grabbing midlife's benefits and redirecting living patterns can cause the "life happiness U-shaped graph" to take a U-turn. You choose.

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?Regarding midlifenext stage appeared with the demoralizing manifest that life satisfaction is characterized and described best by a U shape crowning the beginning of Midlife as being the lowest mark of satisfaction and as introducing the pits of life's happiness.

longitudinal