Aging toward bucketless happiness

Sometime between the decline of pre-industrial drudgery and the rise of contemporary leisure, mainstream America (i.e., middle-class, white, educated, especially city-dwelling folks) came to expect happiness as an automatic benefit of being alive. We tweaked the language of the Constitution's promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to insist on the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the possession of happiness. Preferably all the time. This expectation was probably helped along by the “do your thing” and “self-fulfillment” movements of the late 20^th century, but whatever its source, it is now a fixture of our cultural psyche: We are convinced that we deserve to be happy, and we expect life to make good on the promise. Of course, even at its best, happiness is intermittent. I don’t know anyone who feels especially happy during a bout of the flu or a traffic stop or a fight with a loved one. But in general, in the broad picture, the drive to be happy is pretty compelling.

To live by this narrative, we need to set about doing things that will make us happy, so we spend a lot of energy trying to figure out what that might be. Some folks look for it in relationships, some in mind-altering substances; some hope to find it in wealth and possessions, some in service to others, some in power, some in religious practice; some turn to self-help books, some create bucket lists. Some keep looking for a recipe, a Google map to Happiness.

Now as it turns out, psychologists and assorted other social scientists have been exploring the question of happiness—what it is and how people find it—for some time now. In fact, volumes have been written about it. Probably the most interesting thing I’ve learned from the research on the topic is this: happiness comes not from having stuff but from having experiences.

You're probably wondering just what kind of experiences bring happiness. Well, it happens that I came across this article the other day that asks just that question. The answer this article offers reframed my thinking about happiness and how we experience it—especially as we age. It helped to clarify why the notion of a “bucket list” just doesn’t work for me (a topic I discussed here before).

Here are the questions these authors posed:

What types of experiences should individuals pursue to extract the greatest enjoyment from life:

The extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime experiences that people tell others about and often commemorate in photographs on their (actual or virtual) walls?

Or the simple, ordinary experiences that make up the fabric of people's daily lives?

And here's what they found:

It turns out that “extraordinary experiences”—the “collectible” experiences, the stuff of photo spreads and favorite stories—are associated with happiness only for younger people, who perceive their futures as open and unbounded. It seems that these experiences help to forge people’s sense of who they are in the world. Accumulating extraordinary experiences is part of defining yourself, creating an experiential (vs. an occupational) résumé. Of course, what counts as “extraordinary” depends on the individual. It could be traveling around the world in a hot air balloon or winning the local bowling tournament, bearing a child or completing a pilgrimage to a holy shrine. What makes it extraordinary isn’t so much its magnitude or singularity as its role as a core theme for stories about yourself, its role in defining who you are as a person. For younger people, happiness might look like this: “I'm loving this process of creating my life. The future looks wide open and I want to experience it all.”

As people grow older, though, as their sense of who they are becomes clearer and more grounded, they are likely to gain their greatest happiness not through these extraordinary experiences but through deep satisfaction with the everyday events of their lives. Instead of collectible experiences, older people find happiness in the flow of every day. It's these daily experiences that are self-defining now, experiences that express the life we've forged over the years. And it's these experiences that bring happiness. For older people, happiness might look like this: "My life has been rich with experiences, and I'm happy with where they've brought me. I love the life I've created.” 

At this point , I expect some folks are thinking something like this: “Wait a minute! We don’t have to stop creating our lives. We don’t even have to stop defining ourselves (at least in part) by extraordinary experiences. We can keep having those, too.” I agree. But it makes sense to me that the balance between these two equally happiness-inducing types of experience shifts with age. The reality—like it or not—is that as we age, the time available for forging a dramatically new and adventurous life declines, along with the physical ability and money to sustain such efforts. But the important point is that this does not mean the demise of happiness. On the contrary, although we may well have found happiness in extraordinary experiences during the course of our lives, the very good news is that happiness does not decline even in the absence of those "collectible" experiences. On the contrary, a whole new realm of happy experience opens, one that we would not have had the wherewithal to craft or the perspective to appreciate in our younger years.

So I have begun to consider this (another) gift of age: the ability to take great pleasure in the lives we have created without feeling driven to collect extraordinary experiences.

Of course, that ability is in itself extraordinary.

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Diana Nyad reminded me ...

As you likely know, 64-year-old endurance swimmer Diana Nyad just became the first person on record to swim unaided from Cuba to Florida. (For Robin Roberts' interesting interview with Nyad, click here.) She had tried several times before, beginning in her 20s (shortly after she swam around Manhattan). More recently, after passing her 60^th birthday, she decided to give it another go. She tried three times over the past few years, but was stymied by weather, currents, and jellyfish. She said this would be her last try … although apparently she’s said that before. In any case, she made it.

As she came out of the water, after 112 miles and 50 straight hours of swimming, she had three messages for her assembled fans (including the assembled news media, who dutifully passed her message on to us):

1.      Never, ever give up (a phrase she credited to abc’s Robin Roberts in the interview linked above)

2.      You’re never too old to follow your dreams

3.      It looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a team

In interviews after her swim, she talked a lot about how being older actually helped her: the concentration, the patience, the knowledge that you can push through the tough moments. Her “mantra” as she swam: “Find a way.” She talked about the importance of stepping back, being committed, and then persisting despite setbacks. It wasn’t the athletic feat that mattered, she said; it was what it said about “the human spirit.”

Her messages were inspiring—to folks of any age, but especially to those of us who might have thought we were past fulfilling any long-standing dreams. And her insistence that even endurance swimming, one swimmer in the water for hours and miles, is a team event—this was also important for me to hear. Now maybe more than ever in my life, I am aware of how important other people are to my well-being. How life is a team effort. I learn this regularly from friends who have done a better job than I of building community. And it is something I am, honestly, working on at this very moment in my life. More on that later …

Back to Diana Nyad. In addition to my delight as I followed her last miles to shore (Online, that is. Not in the water), two other trains of thought drifted through my mind. The first was something I’ve written about here before: my concern about “bucket lists”—that designated pile of things we want to be sure to do in our lives. For me—and I know this isn’t true of everyone—what works better for keeping my life full and vibrant is to watch for the unexpected opportunities, the things I hadn’t planned that make me excited and give me a goal, even a fleeting one. I think of things like writing this blog, joining a bird-watching excursion during raptor migration season, swapping a sunny hike in the Utah desert for a photo blog of a rainstorm there, spending a week in New York taking a course in astrophysics, hiking up Storm King Mountain on an unanticipated pilgrimage. 

So, although I have huge respect—and perhaps a dose of envy—for Diana Nyad’s feat, I do not regret that I’ve had no persistent, focused, singular lifelong dream like hers. I’ve had dreams, but they’ve been far more amorphous, and they come true in small ways all the time rather than in one momentous step from the Gulf onto the shore. That suits me well, although it would likely not suit her.

And my second train of thought was this: I am working these days on relinquishing lingering feelings of loss and regret that come from seeing other (usually younger—Diana Nyad being close to the exception) people do things that I have done but can’t any longer or that I just wish I could do. The reality is that there are places I will likely not see, hikes I can no longer take, academic subjects that I won’t master in this lifetime, bike trips that are now impossible for me, books I won’t write. And I’m trying now, with varying but increasing success, to treasure the wonderful memories I have of the times when I have done those things, or things like them, rather than getting caught in sadness and regret over the very real limits to what I will still do in my lifetime.

So, another part of my response to Diana Nyad’s wonderful achievement was to remind myself that phrases like “You’re never too old” and “Never give up” do not mean that I am a failure at life if anything remains undone. I have no absolute bucket list. I’ve had and continue to have a rich, varied, often surprising life. And that’s enough.

Well, that and being part of a “team,” which actually is lifelong wish.

Retirement ... encore!

During the past week, a friend gave me two readings, both proposing that the process of aging—in fact, the process of adult development in general—is undergoing major change. The time has come, they argue, to declare a new developmental stage for the years after midlife and before old age, after the primary career and before full retirement. Lots of folks promoting this vision are calling it the “encore” stage. 

I had really complicated reactions to this stuff. I both loved it and found it deeply problematic. So, following my partner’s sage advice, I’m going to talk about it in two steps: (1) the idea of an encore stage after midlife and before old age and (2) some of the problems this idea raises (at least in my mind). This time, I’ll talk about the idea. Stay tuned for (or tune out, your choice) the second installment.

OK, so it’s not a stretch to say that adulthood has changed, has gotten more complicated. Chalk it up to the baby boomers, who are now moving in huge numbers beyond “midlife” but still not embracing “old age.” Or blame it on the miracles of modern medicine that are keeping us alive and active far beyond the age at which our forebears died. Or attribute it to the growing number of people who are retiring earlier and facing decades of healthy life ahead. Or, more recently, to the number of folks who couldn’t retire (or who “unretired”) because of the recession. Or all of those and more …

Whatever the reason, many people now face a lot of years after the end of midlife, after their initial career or job trajectory winds down. Years when they are eager to do something more (and, often, something more useful) than just engaging in leisure activities, traveling, playing with grandkids—the old stalwart pastimes of retirement. Increasingly, folks are still interested in being engaged in some sort of productive activity and, often, in making a real contribution to their communities.

These particular writings talk about these trends in terms of this notion of the encore career. The first item is a book called The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage beyond Midlife (Marc Freedman, Public Affairs Press, 2011). The book explains (in some detail) this major shift in how people are aging. Not only are we living longer, healthier lives, but many people are genuinely interested in working (in some capacity) far beyond their usual working life. To fully embrace this shift, the book argues, we need to throw out the old developmental models, where midlife is followed directly by old age (remember Erik Erikson’s “Eight Stages of Man [sic]”?). In their place, we need to re-write our collective life story, adding in this “encore” stage. Among my favorite proposals is that this encore might often be preceded by a “gap year,” a year off to get your bearings, try things out, consider how to spend the next stage—just as some young adults now take a year off between college and whatever follows. Beyond that delightful proposal, the book suggests a whole range of programmatic changes—on the personal, community, and governmental levels—that would facilitate the invention of this new stage.

The same perspective is raised, in a much briefer form, in the second reading, an AP article reprinted in the Denver Post called “For boomers, time for an encore.” This article makes much the same point (in fact, I checked to see if this article was a promotion for the book; it wasn’t). The article highlights a group (and website) called Encore.org, whose aim is to connect people with new careers that combine “purpose, passion, and a paycheck.” It also lists a bunch of ideas for specific career paths that “encore” stagers might pursue.

This whole idea appeals to me in a couple of ways. First, it’s always seemed odd to me how slowly models of human development change. They’re about change, for Pete’s sake! Yet we’re still citing Erik Erikson (1955) as we talk about development in 2012. And of all the stages that have changed, later adulthood may be the most fluid of all, if only because it has become so flipping long! Not only do we live longer, but retirement comes increasingly earlier—especially since, during this last generation, Medicare was introduced (1965) and Social Security benefits were increased (1972). So of course later adulthood has changed. And I find it invigorating to contemplate re-writing the rules for what “normal” or even “typical” adult development looks like in this new age.

I also like this stuff because it fits so well with my perennial emphasis on things wonderful about aging (see former blogs on “Celebrating Oldness” and “Bucket Lists and Donuts,” among others). This “encore” vision portrays retirement not as the end of our productive years but as a sort of re-set before entering a new and equally expansive stage of life. As anyone who’s listened to me rant about this knows, I worry that we're too quick to dwell on the losses of aging and too reluctant to embrace its gifts. Clearly, this new model offers inspiration—and even some direction—for folks who are searching for a meaningful and productive way to spend their post-midlife years. So the encore stage appeals to me big time in this way.

Also, and less comfortably, this feels like a personal challenge to me. Reading these pieces, I have to ask myself whether I’m taking full advantage of my encore time, or whether I’m treating it like an old-time retirement-on-the-front-porch stage, “old age” in those outdated developmental models. Am I slacking when I should be beating the bushes for a fulfilling new career? Am I resigning myself to the pasture when I still should be on the race track?

Or, alternatively, is this encore model just another source of pressure to “do it right”?

So suggests one psychologist, who’s concerned that this new view of aging that urges a new career with passion and purpose might just add another burden for post-retirement folks: stay active, stay engaged, stay healthy, stay connected to social networks. Oh yeah, and in your spare time, stay working. But stay out of the way of younger workers. This pressure, she argues, “denies the reality of aging.” She continues, “If there’s one thing great about getting older, [it’s that] certain things are liberating ... Do we really want to put more societal pressure on people as they grow older to look and act ever younger?”

To draw on that earlier “Bucket Lists and Donuts” blog, do we have to have a bucket list and an encore career to be “healthy” as we age? Or can we enjoy the occasional donut and call it good? I wish I had the answer. Instead, I just keep reading (and blogging), hoping to outlast the question.

Truth is, it sometimes seems like getting older is flat-out hard work, and the constant need to rethink how we’re doing it can be exhausting. So, let me shift to a different (but, I fear, no less heavy) topic. Next time I’ll talk about what I think is a major shortcoming of this new encore model. Other than that it requires serious reflection.

Just when we were having a good time …

Bucket lists and donuts

Not long ago, someone at a party invited everyone to share what was on their “bucket list.” Personally, I didn’t have such a list, although I quickly tried to think of a few things I could put on it if it were a required assignment.

(In case you missed it, the notion of a “bucket list” comes from a 2007 movie by that name starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as two old men approaching the end of their days. One explains to the other that the “bucket list” is all the things you’d like to do before you die.)

This experience set me to thinking. Bucket lists seem to be all the rage these days. I just did a quick Google search, and over 15 million entries for “bucket list” popped up. Lots of these were in the “ideas for bucket lists” category, so it seems like folks are hunting for things they might put on their lists. Given their popularity, I started wondering why I had neither a list nor a burning desire to create one. I felt like maybe I was somehow remiss for not having completed this task.

Then, to stir the pot even more, I recently heard an old NPR interview with Nora Ephron, a screenwriter (“You’ve Got Mail,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Julie and Julia,” “Sleepless in Seattle”), humorist, feminist, and all-around amazing woman who died last month. The interview was from maybe 15 years ago, before Nora had (or knew she had) the leukemia that would take her life. She had written about growing old (I Feel Bad about My Neck), and Terri Gross was talking with her about that topic. Nora said something like this (I’m paraphrasing, but it’s close): “The time I have left is finite. For instance, I have a limited number of meals left. So if a friend says, ‘Let’s go to lunch at x,’ and it’s not a good place, I say, ‘No, let’s not!’” Nora continued: “We all know donuts aren’t healthy. But life is a crapshoot. You could be hit by a bus tomorrow and die. I’m saying, you should have the donut! I’m coming down on the side of the donut!”

“Donuts … bucket lists,” I thought. “What would be my donut, what’s on my bucket list? What am I missing?” My answer: Honestly, nothing I can think of.

Instead of making a wish list for the future, I found myself musing about how full my life has already been. I ended up thinking not about what I still want but about what I’ve already had. For most of my life, I’ve had the great good fortune to be able to do most of things I really wanted to do. I’m just not left with a bunch of unsatisfied yearnings. Maybe to demonstrate this to myself, I made a list of the things I’ve done and those I’m doing now. It was an eye-opening experience. I recommend it highly.

But having thought about this, I wondered, despite all that, should I have bucket list for the future, a box of donuts yet to eat? Knowing that I’m easily captured by the word “should,” I took this question seriously. And then I realized that the very act of taking it so seriously—as if it were an obligation, a requirement—could be a trap. Given my particular obsession with completing assignments, I could easily come to believe that something is wrong with not having such existential longings. It struck me that this fascination with bucket lists and donuts could make me lose sight of the life I have, thinking that the assignment is to imagine a life I could wish for.

Of course, this isn’t an either/or proposition. Bucket lists seem to me a grand strategy. They can help us identify things that we have denied ourselves, positive things that are possible if we just grant ourselves permission and take the initiative to go after them. But it seems like they can also suggest that happiness can only be found somewhere out there, in the exotic and the remote—even if, in fact, we have a rich life right here. Allowing, of course, for the everyday feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction that we all experience. And keeping open the possibility of spotting something we do want to experience before we kick the bucket.

It strikes me that the difference between a bucket list and Nora Ephron’s donut may lie in the spontaneity of the donut. I like the idea of being open to things that come along, coming down on the side of the donut. But I’m not so sure about formalizing a “To Do” list for the future.

After this mental exercise, I’m feeling more settled about the bucket list thing. I’m hugely grateful for all the experiences I’ve had, and I’m not yearning for anything in particular before I die. This is not to say that I won’t be on the lookout for that donut. But I feel no obligation to create a list, despite the fact that Google has 15 million entries telling me that it’s an assignment.