Is the midlife slump happening to him? Or is he just a simple peasant who doesn't go through this happiness curve? Why not go interview some middle aged hotel clerks and see what they fantasize about changing their life into? Quite a few of the men interviewed go through divorces in their 40s but then rebound in their 50s and make successful second marriages to younger? Ok, that's cool that they have changed but couldn't they have kept their marriage going AND changed?
Why throw out wife number one? I'm guessing she was a similar age and also going to a midlife slump. How did the divorce affect her life?
Who knows! Rauch doesn't interview any of the wives. I do know that divorce has a huge negative impact on women's finances - how does that play into the happiness curve? Rauch writes about the irritating cliches concerning midlife crisis. Then he gives a bunch of examples of MALE midlife crisis cliches.
He does mention it's hard to find any cliches about female midlife crisis and gives one example that does not seem to fall under that rubric at all - a cartoon of a middle aged woman trying on clothes that don't fit anymore.
The reason Rauch can't find anything about female midlife crisis is because the main issue with women hitting that age is they become invisible. THAT is the issue - society deems us disposable once our sexuality is found unappealing.
Cough - all those divorces mentioned above, trading in the first wife for a newer model - cough. Another bugaboo I had with this book is the padding - oh, the padding!
Next to the word filler in the dictionary, is an image of this book. He could have filled the book with relevant information concerning all middle aged people, not just a small subsection of them. Instead he pads the book with information about life coaches, wisdom studies ending it by saying wisdom isn't something all old people have - so why spend so many pages discussing it and lots of discussion about some painting he saw in a museum that really resonated with him.
I am so disappointed in the book. I was hoping to find something that spoke to me and my situation as a 50 year old woman but nope. I guess I need to keep looking. View all 6 comments. Amy Elizabeth I came here after reading the first four pages and am so grateful. You saved me from being even more annoyed by getting in further. Liquidlasagna if you're financially okay at 50 you'll like the book otherwise not! Mar 16, Jenn "JR" rated it it was amazing. We've all heard the jokes about midlife crisis and folks who are experiencing difficulties in midlife are often pooh-poohed -- I remember one middle aged friend laughing at midlife crises as self-indulgent, saying "I can't afford a midlife crisis!
There may be many satires and jokes about adolescence but we are all very aware of the real changes and challenges faced by humans in this phase of their development. It exists and it's not a jok We've all heard the jokes about midlife crisis and folks who are experiencing difficulties in midlife are often pooh-poohed -- I remember one middle aged friend laughing at midlife crises as self-indulgent, saying "I can't afford a midlife crisis!
It exists and it's not a joke. Well, the same can be said of midlife, as it turns out. Jonathan Rauch's book, "The Happiness Curve" starts off by diving into a huge pile of research: dozens of research teams have seen this u-shaped curve in self-reported life satisfaction scores. We start off VERY happy in life and our satisfaction gradually decreases at mid-life, and then begins to increase again after this midlife trough.
It's not just cultural -- it's found across multiple cultures and samples across decades. And, it's not just humans -- researchers working with primates around the world, in various settings, have found the same curve in our nearest non-human primate relatives and may be biological. Rauch defines this midlife slump as "normal and natural. The author provides a very indepth review of these studies and how different kinds of happiness are defined affective vs longer term life satisfaction.
Humans are programmed to start off big and then switch gears -- so when we get to middle age and we haven't saved the world, we get a negative feedback loop that says "Something's wrong with me. Then, despite your inclination to become a hermit and hide out -- connect and reach out to others who are going through it or who have gone through it: connectedness is one of the keys to surviving.
Finally, make changes in small steps, not giant leaps -- and build on your strengths, skills and experience. The author uses "Star Trek" as an example: "In Star Trek, undoubtedly the wisest of all television shows, a recurrent theme is that the most blazingly intelligent character, the Vulcan Spock, lacks the instinctive empathy of Dr.
McCoy and the pragmatic decisiveness of Captain Kirk. None of the three alone is wise. Wisdom arises from the sometimes tense interaction of the triumvirate. There's no association between wisdom and intelligence, "What wise people know about is life.
The book is really well written, enjoyable and informative. I really appreciate that it doesn't focus entirely on perimenopause or "hormones" -- but I do wish that there was a bit more coverage on that area aside from a mention of "the grandmother effect" and the interesting bit of trivia that humans are one of 3 species on this planet where the female of the species long outlives her fertility the other two species are whales.
View all 5 comments. Aug 05, Larry rated it it was ok Shelves: happiness. This is a tedious book. Jonathan Rauch is a competent journalist, and does well summarizing the work of scientist and other thinkers about happiness. However, he attempts to make his own contribution to the field by conducting a survey and using the experience of his correspondents and his own life story to illustrate the scientific findings.
There are dome nuggets of interesting material here, but the reader is mining low-grade ore. One section I found interesting was where he summarized the fac This is a tedious book. One section I found interesting was where he summarized the factors that another survey found to contribute most strongly to people's reported well-being.
My recommendation: don't read this book. Read the books and the authors that Rauch cites Jan 14, Lise Petrauskas rated it really liked it. I was worried that this book would be a feel good self help kind of book but it was much more fact based than I initially thought.
I learned quite a bit and incidentally feel more hopeful about the next chapter of my own life. I was also fascinated to hear the science on how very much our happiness relies on the way we compare ourselves to others. View 2 comments. Nov 20, Crystal Harkness rated it really liked it. What I like about The Happiness Curve was that it was a combination of stories and data about aging and life satisfaction. Having both the personal stories and the science behind the midlife crisis made this book interesting to read.
You can tell the author put a lot of work into gathering all the information he needed to write this book. I think no matter what age you are when you read The Happiness Curve it is relatable in some way. People make different choices in there life as to when they g What I like about The Happiness Curve was that it was a combination of stories and data about aging and life satisfaction.
People make different choices in there life as to when they go to college if they do , when they get married, have kids, and start a career, or change careers. So, by the time they are in their forties their lives may have different stressors, accomplishments, and regrets. But I think we all will go through the happiness curve regardless. I figured by the time I was 40 I would be free of a lot of stress and inner turmoil. But the good news is that the older I get the happier it sounds like I will be based on the data from this book.
I look forward to seeing how that all plays out in my life. I think this book is worth a read. Mar 05, Mom2triplets04 rated it liked it Shelves: non-fiction.
Listened to this on audio. I was looking for something to help me deal with turning I was a bit depressed about it. It was well worth the listen to. May 17, Gina rated it liked it. It is important and encouraging if one is in the mid- to late-forties to know that across cultures and countries and even with some evidence in other primate species!
It just gets, generally speaking, better from there, even taking into account looming health issues. This is basically the opposite of what we expect, that life is best in the 20s and goes straight down from there, never to recover. Instead, It is important and encouraging if one is in the mid- to late-forties to know that across cultures and countries and even with some evidence in other primate species!
Instead, happiness does decline from the 20s for the next few decades, as our expectations are relentlessly disappointed. Apparently at some point we stop having high expectations for the future, and then are happily surprised for the rest of our lives, making us increasingly happy. This is kind of depressing, kind of funny.
The book started out as an Atlantic article and was expanded into a book, and you can tell. The main idea is interesting, and the filler about life coaching and wisdom is a bit tedious.
Also, the perspective was overwhelmingly from the perspective of a highly educated, high achieving striver in a rich nation. I can see how the happiness curve works for someone who sets high career goals, with the goalposts constantly moving to loftier places, throughout ones' early career, and for whom identity is highly caught up in professional success.
That honestly isn't many people, although some bubbles can make it feel like it is, and almost all the people discussed in the book are of this type.
I want to hear about the auto mechanic or the stay at home mom or the the rice paddy worker in Thailand; what does the happiness curve mean for someone like that? Apr 20, Kirsten rated it really liked it Shelves: nonfiction , neuro-psych , read Fascinating information about the U-shaped happiness curve!
If you don't want to read the whole book, you can also skim Jonathan Rauch's excellent article in The Atlantic, which I'll add below. The most eye-opening surprise for me was the strong evidence for a U-shaped happiness curve not just in human societies across the globe, but also in non-human primates, like chimpanzees and orangutans.
Feb 05, PhebeAnn rated it really liked it. This book is written by a journalist who had not so much a mid-life crisis but just more like a general slump feeling even when his life was going really well in mid-age career accolades, happy marriage etc. Then miraculously at around late 40s early 50s he started feeling better, with nothing else really changing in his life.
He wanted to investigate this phenomenon and it turns out that the research on happiness shows that cross culturally, even accounting for other factors such as income, g This book is written by a journalist who had not so much a mid-life crisis but just more like a general slump feeling even when his life was going really well in mid-age career accolades, happy marriage etc. He wanted to investigate this phenomenon and it turns out that the research on happiness shows that cross culturally, even accounting for other factors such as income, gender, etc.
On average, people will experience some level of "slump" feeling in mid-life though what constitutes mid-life in terms of age varies slightly from culture to culture. A similar phenomenon has been observed in apes as well. Basically there is evidence to suggest that this slump is to some degree biologically built into primates, but there are also cultural factors, and how each individual experiences it is going to vary considerably--some might have a full on 'mid life crisis,' some may feel a general feeling of malaise, and some may not feel it at all.
It's fascinating, but also validating in some ways to know that the period of life in which you're most settled and have the most going right can actually be the time you feel least satisfied. Part of the slump, says the science, is due to disappointment. In our 20s we are excited, our expectations are high. Through our 30s and into 40s things maybe aren't as great as we anticipated they might be and we're also looking forward with pessimism, assuming that we have only increasing decrepitude to look forward to.
But the good news is, contrary to our expectations and stereotypes about getting old, it will get better. Check out our investing article , to take steps towards growing your current cash. The researchers, from Purdue University, also found that it may be possible to make too much money, as far as happiness is concerned.
The well-documented "hedonic treadmill" phenomenon also suggests that people adjust relatively quickly to their newly flush bank accounts, with happiness leveling back off over time.
In the new study, the researchers note that their estimates pertain specifically to individuals, and ideal household income is likely higher. Plus, while the figures in the paper represent global estimates, earning satisfaction also varies widely around the world, and in urban versus rural areas within countries. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip.
Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Happiness Movies Preview. It appears your browser does not have it turned on.
0コメント