How to explain this U-shaped happiness curve, wherein seasoned 60-somethings turn out to be as joyful as 18-year-olds?

 How to explain this U-shaped happiness curve, wherein seasoned 60-somethings turn out to be as joyful as 18-year-olds?

 Positive changes in personality, due to growing more socially mature, may contribute to the upswing: Studies of personality traits have shown that over time, we tend to become more emotionally stable, conscientious, and agreeable. Blanchflower, who is 71, theorizes, too, that adults tend to get happier after about age 50 because they’ve become more realistic, having accepted that they aren’t going to be president or the next Aretha Franklin.

 They may also appreciate gentler pastimes—dancing, swimming, or, in Blanchflower’s case, whiling away a summer summer afternoon fishing with his grandchildren—than they could at, say, age 45, when they still craved the rush of a rough tennis match or the challenge of a triathlon but mourned the fact that their knees were shot. 

As people grow older, “they care less about excitement but then find other things they enjoy. Your life patterns change. Activities that didn’t make me happy at 32 made me happy at 52,” Blanchflower says.