Choose to be happy.

I'm in my second half of life as I plan to live to be a minimum of 100 years old. Part of my plan, is to never retire from work. It made be an American thing but I don't think retiring is for me. I like working even when I'm not crazy about the job but I've gone back to school to get a Master's and just got a job more in line with my education. And I still have at least two more career changes. Working further into my field as a scientist and then probably end up teaching at the college level all the knowledge and wisdom I've gained in the field.

The best news I've had in the last few weeks is that someone thought I was at least 22 years younger than I am. I thanked them and told them I could be their parent. That totally freaked them out and they asked how is that I look and seem so much younger than I am.

My only explanation, I keep making friends regardless of that new friend's age. I keep playing video games, and reading. I also just walk and have a cheerful attitude towards life. Believing in myself, and a firm desire to live to be older than 100 years of age with the same passion for life I have had since I was 13 years old.

Lastly, I don't have a specific religion or belief in an afterlife so I've always intended to make the best of THIS life than worry about what happens when I'm gone.

Life has only gotten better as I got older. I'm 50 now and I know things will get worse in many ways as my health gets worse in 10-20 years, but so far life has been great. Don't believe the internet cynics, life is what you make of it.

This isnt even a settled fact.

For example: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/happiness/happiness-over-the-lifespan

Argues a few things:

Does happiness decline with age?

People often worry that happiness diminishes with age, but that’s actually not the case. One large study found just a slight overall dip in happiness between age 20 and age 70—on a scale of 1 to 10, average life satisfaction went from 5.8 to 5.4.

What is the happiness curve?

The happiness curve refers to the trajectory that happiness tends to follow as we age. People begin life fairly happy. Around age 18, their happiness begins to decrease, reaching a low point in their 40s. But after age 50, happiness begins to rise again. This U-shaped happiness curve has emerged consistently in large studies of Western societies.

So there is a common curve, but the curve is gradual.

It also notes the likely causes are that financial stability rises mid-life and improves happiness, while free time is at a minimum at the bottom of the curve and reduces happiness.

This has nothing to do with age and everything to do with culture, which can be changed.

I don't want to say it gets worse, so I tell them to enjoy being young and have experiences while they can, because it gets more difficult.

Like, if you do stupid things and break a bone, better do it while it will heal much faster. If you want to get good at gymnastics or anything that requires being physically fit, better do it while being young.

I'm starting my 40ies and can only see how my knees are starting to hurt and my body aches in ways I didn't know it could.

My grandmother is 95 and wants to die. She was active for her whole life but now that she is losing sight, hearing, and is mostly bound to her apartment, she's had enough. And I can understand.

You certainly can stay young and joyful in your head, but at some point your body is not going to help.

Lmao

Joy isn't reserved for the young, but it's sure fucking easier to be joyful when your body hurts less because you're far less likely to have one or more chronic pain conditions in your youth.

Your heart won't harden? It might just with atherosclerosis and enough time.

So go enjoy the joy even more now while it's still easier.

I fucking hate this soo much! People always tolled me this when I went to school. I fucking hated my life and if it would only get worse, then why even bother living? Well turns out I was right, and way more than I could've imagined. Now as an adult I make my own rules and I've never been happier!

I don't necessarily say that to my kid as a warning. In fact, yesterday it was said to her as an encouragement. She has a significant sum of unspent allowance and she saw something she really wanted but decided she didn't want to spend her money on it. I told her that she is at a point in her life where she can spend money on whatever she wanted and not have to worry about bills or rent or what happens if she runs out and she should take advantage of that. So she bought the thing she wanted and she was happier for it.

Often people say "life is what you make of it", but that's not quite true. You can try to steer your life by your actions, but in reality fortune plays a greater role than you can imagine.

I have been very fortunate in my life, most people I know have not been. From broken dreams, blossoming mental illness, to just plain old death - a lot of the people I care about have been robbed of joy in their lives.

It's not something they gave up through weakness of character, it was something taken from them. When you are young, you've maybe only had a couple of bad rolls, but when you're older odds are you'll be worse off (the probability of misfortune often being higher than that of fortune).

That's not how it works, unfortunately.

FACT: they're wrong.

I'm 40 and I think with the strongest faith people who say this kind of things are an absolute toxin.

As much as i dont want to be the adult saying this to youth. And i won't be outwardly cynical enough to actually say it to anyone. It is really funny when i know that's how i felt in my youth, and i know how i feel in my mid-30s. It's creeping up on me. Tapping me on the shoulder. Wondering why i am still pretending its not there, and no matter how hard i fight and cling on, i am still falling into the realisation that i can't be a kid forever.

Perhaps a trillion galaxies out there. Numbers of stars in a typical galaxy is about 100 billion. But at least we have more grains of sand on our planet.

Anyway, life most probably gets better after high school, and most probably keeps getting better until you're old enough to develop some disease. Or perhaps you die in war, or in a hospital bed, or homeless under a bridge.

I truly don't know where I'm going with this.

Good Luck kid. Try not to lose that spark.

I'm 43 and I feel like I'm living in a movie after the credits rolled. It's joyful when I sleep I guess.

Ha! Jokes on you, I've never been happy.

My adult niece and I had a convo years ago when she was still in high school. I told her that she was in the most challenging part of life and that in a few years, when she turned 18, it would start getting better with autonomy. I don't know if it helped her during a challenging time, but I hope it validated her struggles and gave her something to look forward to because being a teenager in school is the worst.

In the US, at age 18 you become a debtor.

Somewhere in your 20s or 30s you become a real estate speculator.

Eventually people start owing you money, and then the cycle repeats itself with the next generation.

This system is anti-joy, and I will never accept it into my heart. I will fight it with every ounce of my strength until the day that I die. This is my joy.

I am 43 and finally living my best life thanks to a cocktail of psych meds, therapy, and support from my spouse and kids.

As I've aged, I've become less emotional, period. It works both ways. I don't have the high of the extreme kids as often, but painful stuff is also less-impactfull.

There's just not much novelty to experiences anymore, so I just kinda live through them and move on.

A few years ago the woman I absolutely intended to marry and spend my life with fairly suddenly broke it off. If I had been 20 it would have debilitated me, but at 40 it wasn't the same.

Yeah, it sucked and derailed my future plans, but I also had a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that night I had to prepare for, so I just kept moving forward and lived my life.

I ended up being upset that I wasn't really that upset. There was no weeping, hatred, name-calling, etc. It was just a shitty thing that happened.

That quote from everything everywhere all at once really got me. Kindness is how I fight. In a world of hardship and bravado being jolly and soft is my act of rebellion.