Start with the ending

Lisa writes: I've discovered something here at home with my parents, and my parents' friends: people over 60 have interesting hobbies. More specifically, some people who didn't seem to have particularly interesting lives back when they had kids at home, suddenly got really interesting a few years after all the kids left for good. My dad, for example, now builds and battles remote controlled fighter planes. Our old bishop now has a basement-full of gem cutting equipment and boxes full of beautiful, hand-cut stones. My uncle assembles elaborate model train sets. He was a CPA, for heavens sake! CPA? Boooring. Tiny little engineer waving out of a tiny little steam engine as it zooms by? Fun!

This discovery is consistent with a recent Gallup poll which seems to indicate that everybody is most miserable between 25 and 50 and then we all suddenly get a lot happier. Here's a quote from The New York Times article:

In measuring immediate well-being — yesterday’s emotional state — the researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to 85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the low point of our early 50s.

Another article I read today also seems to support the old-guys-with-hobbies-have-more-fun theory. This blogger was asked: "What's something you know now about happiness that you didn't know when you were 18 years old?"

When I was 18 I thought that I had to go out and find things to make me happy. Now I am happiest when I don't venture past my property line. There is a world of adventure in my house and yard -- books, my family, drawing and painting, making yogurt, sauerkraut, and kombucha, beekeeping, raising chickens, making things. I still enjoy going out and seeing the rest of the world, but I also am at the point where I am never bored by staying home. Life gets more interesting as I grow older.

I'm wondering if, knowing these patterns, there is a way to bypass some of the miserable middle years and just head straight to the fun 60s? And I'm wondering if the way to do that is to emulate my dad's buddies and pick up fun hobbies? If anybody needs us, I'll be in the basement making lampwork beads and Tom will be at the community center taking a massage therapy class.