How we can lose happiness with age
I was coming over all nostalgic recently, which annoyed me because I usually can't stand it when people obsess about the past, using selective memories about how much better it was and ignoring the crap they actually had to put up with back in the day. It’s pretty dreadful behaviour and yet I have to admit, for me too, life was better when I was young. If someone asked me to remember the time I felt happiest, most myself, most connected to the people around me, most conscious of the world and my place in it, most alive – it would be my childhood, my youth and young manhood - basically that whole time being in education.
So why was that period better than now? Of course, we could point to some seemingly obvious differences, like not having so many responsibilities – no mortgage, no job, no kids, no car repayments etc etc. But didn’t we all have plenty of responsibilities growing up too? At school we had coursework, homework, exams, playing on sports teams, learning lines for the school play, study projects, art projects and a million rules to follow. Then outside school – there were the part-time jobs, the dog walking, the cat feeding, the helping with the housework and cooking, shopping, the looking after younger siblings, the extra-curricular clubs. And you still had to find time to go through puberty, have your first kiss, your first smoke, your first taste of alcohol. We can’t say we have more responsibilities now than when we were young – they've just changed.
We could also mention the time factor. Didn’t we have more time when we were younger? Well, this much is probably true. I can still remember my first 8-hour working day and thinking it was insane – how could anyone work for so long in one go? But even taking this into account, the addition of a few hours of working time doesn’t fully explain why those school days felt so much better. Even if I’d had to spend 10 hours a day at school, I think I’d still be feeling nostalgic about it.
Of course, not everyone enjoyed their youth. For some it was a period of absolute misery, but for me, the reason it was the best time of my life lies in the fulfillment of those three fundamentals needs, the three cruxes – the physical, the cognitive/creative and the expressive. At what other time in our lives are all three so fully satisfied? Physical activity was mandatory – there was no getting out of it, even for the most unwilling. Everyone had to throw javelins, kick, throw and hit balls, jump into and over stuff, run through muddy fields in rain, wind or snow (sometimes all three at the same time – this was England, after all). And break times were football, fighting, or just running around for no particular reason.
On the cognitive/creative side, it must be the only period in most people’s lives when they are learning something new, being intellectually challenged and solving fresh problems literally every day. And the creativity - art classes, drama, creative writing, woodwork, cookery.
Then the opportunity for expression – obviously, adolescence is an emotional struggle for everyone, but there was less bottling it up, less shame or fear in expressing emotion, more outlets, more tears and a hell of a lot more laughter. Not to mention the friendships and the camaraderie.
So why does it all stop? Why do we allow ourselves to trudge to the office every day, sit behind a computer screen for eight or more hours, trudge home, overeat, binge-watch Netflix or mooch about aimlessly on social media, getting fatter, less fit, more prone to illness? Why do we allow ourselves to remain in jobs that don’t challenge us, to stop finding new things to learn, to distract ourselves with mindless TV shows, meaningless video games, pointless apps, asinine social media? Why do we stop expressing ourselves, why do we hide our emotions and allow ourselves to generate supressed rage, or slide into depression?
As we become adults we fool ourselves into thinking we’re wiser, tougher, more accomplished, more complete human beings when in fact we’ve lost so much of what really made us happy, and what really kept us human. Perhaps it’s time to prioritize our physical, cognitive/creative and expressive sides, rediscover our youth and be happy, healthy and human again.