A Way to Make the Fifties Happier
The headline was definite. “Americans Least Happy in Their 50s and Late 80s,” trumpeted the results of the Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index.
Surely the results came as no surprise to any card carrying fifty something member of the sandwich generation.
An ever lengthening to do list that includes teen and late teen child rearing, ministering to aging parents and squeezing in the possibility of a last promotion or two in a tanking economy is not exactly the best recipe for happiness. Who has time to contemplate happiness anyway?
The forties are long forgotten and the sixties look almost effortless by comparison.
Perhaps we’ve had it backwards all these years. Instead of a work family balance juggle that escalates in the fifties, maybe we need to consider an alternative. Why don’t be consider a ten year work hiatus in the fifties, an early and limited retirement, until myraid family responsibilities come back to a manageable size. Then we can retrain and have at least a decade of work ahead without distraction. Maybe then the fifties would be the happiest decade of all.
Tags: early retirement, fifty, retraining, unhappiness, work-life balance
