I get the Bold School e-mail from the Washington Post; it’s basically a weekly report on some aspect of aging and it’s always interesting. This week’s was on the grumpy old person stereotype, countered with research that shows that happiness throughout life is a U shape, declining through the thirties and forties and then rising again in the fifties and continuing to rise after that. The e-mail concluded with the idea that even if you’re a pessimist, happiness is something that you can consciously practice in small ways until it becomes a habit. Such as (from the e-mail):
