When you think about the best years of your life, you might reflect on college, the year you got married or perhaps the years your children were born. But researchers at the Centre of Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science, decided to find out which years people are actually the happiest versions of themselves, and the results may surprise you.
Data was collected from 23,000 German adults ages 17–85, and participants were asked a series of questions including how satisfied they were with their lives and how they would feel in five years. Five years later, this same group of people were asked to share their current level of satisfaction.
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What’s interesting is that results of the study reveal a U-shape curve that shows the greatest levels of satisfaction fall earlier in life and much later in life: ages 23 and 69 to be exact. Not what we would’ve guessed!
For me, 23 was a good year but it definitely wasn’t my happiest—I spent every dime I had saved up during college to move to New York and pursue my dream job (it did pay off though). So here’s lookin’ at you 69! It gives me hope to know that even when your skin begins to wrinkle and your body just doesn’t move the way it once did, you can still experience one of the happiest years of your life.
