The Happiness U-Curve - December 17

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 40, 54; PM Psalm 51; Zech. 7:8-8:8; Rev. 5:6-14; Matt. 25:14-30  

Today’s Reflection

Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city… Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. … They shall be my people and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.  –Zechariah 8: 3-8

This week I read an interview with Jonathan Rauch, author of a book called The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better after 50. Published in Mockingbird (a magazine which counts many Episcopalians among its editors and writers), the interview itself is titled, “Beyond the Midlife Crisis.” As a 40-something who’s gone through several major life changes over the past five years (though I don’t know that I would label these transitions as ‘crises’ in the popular sense of the word), the title piqued my interest. I would argue, though, that is more fruitful to think of crisis in the literary sense of being a turning point. A crisis is an opportunity for the plot of our life to change in a way that opens up new possibilities for how our stories will continue to unfold.

As a 47-year-old who is about to turn 48 at the end of December, I was amused and maybe also encouraged to learn that the “data … suggests that in developed countries age 47 or so is the statistical average bottom.” So, statistically, the low point in the U-curve of our happiness is age 47. My response to this is: Yes! I have made it through the lowlands and, at least according to this one measure, things should be looking up in life from here on out!

Looking at today’s passage from Zechariah 8, we find a picture of Jerusalem in which old men and old women will sit again in the streets—I imagine the scene as perhaps sitting out on front porches—and boys and girls are playing in the streets. In this intergenerational scene, there is a place in the beloved community of God for people of all ages and at all stages of life. Not just the children are happy, but so too are those who have progressed to being of a “great age.” No matter what age we are, no matter what stage in life, we can find peace in knowing this: we will be God’s people and he will be our God, “in faithfulness and righteousness.”

I’m not sure that our happiness trajectory can be charted as simply as a U-curve would indicate. However, the point is that life has its high and lows, and there’s something about being in those early and later stages of life that lends itself to happiness. As the interviewer summarizes, what we learn in the first half of life equips us to live into a renewed sense of our priorities in the second half: “[Rauch’s] writing on the happiness curve is foremost a word of grace. Though midlife can be, for many, very difficult, he assures us that it is also a time of positive change. You begin to value relationships and compassion above status and acclaim; oftentimes, you emerge from the trough with more wisdom and kindness than you entered it.”

No matter what we may be going through in life—even when we are at the bottom of the happiness U-curve that is midlife (at least according to Rauch and the researchers he cites)—we do not walk alone. In Psalm 40, appointed for today, we hear words of thankfulness for God’s faithfulness from someone who, looking back on it all, sees more clearly how God has been there all along and seen them through the times of trial.

I pray these lines from Psalm 40 will be a balm to you on those days when you feel trapped down in the “pits of despair” or the “desolate pit” (which sounds a lot like being at the bottom of the happiness U-curve!). As we end 2021 (and as my own year at age 47 draws to a close), I feel encouraged. God has put a new song in my mouth. With the Psalmist, I feel grateful for all the great things God has done—and hopeful for all the wonders of what will be as we look together toward 2022, with all that it may hold for us. Thanks be to God!

—Becky+

(The version included below is Psalm 40: 1-6 from Psalms for Praying by Nan Merrill.)

I waited patiently for the Beloved, who heard my cry and came to me.

Love raised me from the pits of despair, out of confusion and fear,

and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

There is a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to the Beloved.

May many see and rejoice, may they put their trust in Love.

Blessed are those who make Love their home,

who do not turn to the proud, to those who follow false idols!

O Beloved, how wondrous are your gifts to us; your thoughts are beyond our imagination.

What joy to live in Oneness with you!

Were we to proclaim and tell of Your beauty and blessed grace, who could measure it?

Questions for Self-Reflection

Thinking back on your years of life so far, which years stand out as low points and which ones as high points. Does the trajectory of your life and your happiness feel like a U-curve? Or would you describe the trajectory of your life and sense of happiness as following some other pattern?

Reflect on the ways in which we can experience life’s highs and lows in ways that may be too complicated to chart. Where do you see God in all of this?

Daily Challenge

You can read the full interview with Jonathan Rauch, “Beyond the Midlife Crisis,” on the Mockingbird Ministries website.