Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

The moon was full. The skies were sprinkled with stars. The sea breeze was majestic, even audible. Palm fronds above the restaurant rustled in the wind. The supporting trees appeared to bend and bow as the zephyrs came in from the shore. Life was always good in paradise.

He was seated at a table with two other men. The food was excellent: tropical. Both men were British Expatriates. One was in his late twenties. The other was of similar age to this old boy. He was in his mid 50s.

Now what struck this Columnist in paradise was the idealism and passion of the younger ‘guy.’ There was an eagerness to tell his story. There was a great deal of dogma. The younger guy was ‘happy’ to offer his advice on life, and the way to live it, to the two older guys: these two older men who were old enough to be father to the ‘young buck.’

Ok, as is frequently the case, the men with less to say had the last word. It went like this. “Jack the Lad, when you get to our age, come again with your assertions. They will be totally different in twenty years.”

Young Jack was not too happy with the responses of the two old Boys. He felt that he was being patronized for being a younger man. But that was not the case. Jack was simply on a different parallel. He was on a vastly different wave length.

Jack was in a world where sex, material achievement, carousing, brawling, aggressive discourse, and impulsive motivations were de rigueur.

The two older guys on the other hand had, “been there, and done that.” They were older and hopefully wiser, even happier, than young Jack with his super charged testosterone. They were content to assess the younger guy’s assertions through the prism of their many years of experience, both good and bad. The result was the classic KNOWING SMILE.

OK. This old boy read a fascinating story weeks later online. The narrative took him back to that Friday night at the Virgin Islands roadside bar.

It was an article in Atlantic Online, dated November 17, 2014, by Jonathan Rauch. The title was, “THE REAL ROOTS OF MIDLIFE CRISIS.”

Rauch described something termed the EASTERLIN PARADOX. It went this way. “Life satisfaction declined with age the first two decades of adulthood. The worst years were somewhere between the mid-40s and early 50s.” After that something very interesting took place. Life satisfaction began to increase from the early to mid 50s. Satisfaction with life increased steadily after that. The pattern came to be known as the happiness U curve.”

So the term “mid-life crisis’’ appeared to have a basis in fact. The research stated that people expressed less overall satisfaction at mid life. The foibles of youth, this Old Boy’s young English friend expressed at the bar that Friday night indicated a pattern found in the research. That, the values of 20-40 year olds: the first decades of adulthood, differ from the values of those of an older age, say 55 and above.

Ambition and the pursuit of sex, wealth, and power, appeared to be primal in early adulthood. On the other hand, 55 year olds, and those older, measured self worth using very different measures. Relationships were more important than career to the older group. The research showed that, as people aged their time horizons grew shorter. They invested in what was most important, such as meaningful relationships.

At midlife people recalibrated their lives. People, began to evaluate their lives less in terms of social competitiveness, and more in terms of social connectedness. One person in the research sample stated that in their 40s they were obsessively comparing their life with the lives of others, even counting the ways that they had fallen behind in the achievement stakes.

However, the research showed that after mid life, when the future became less distant, and more constrained, people focused on the present. That new focus appeared to lead to better emotions, and a savoring and living for the moment. The sense of disappointment and failure decreased after middle age. Older people were less prone to feel unhappy about things they could not change. In fact unlike the turbulence of youth, many who live after age 50 found post middle age a pleasant surprise.

Post the 50s, there were solid traits that were imbibed and appreciated. The researcher termed these the “TRAITS OF THE WISE.” They included compassion and empathy, good social reasoning, good decision making, equanimity, tolerance, and comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity.

In fact the peak of emotional life was put at the late 70s. In other words, as people became older they became wiser, more satisfied, calmer, and more grateful.

What the research stated to this old boy is something he has never doubted. He has observed the smiles of older folk. They smile a lot more than younger folk from his observations. He has seen their restraint, their acceptance of what life has thrown at them. He has listened to their advice. He does not think older folk are wiser. He knows they are.

And is it not great to know that true happiness starts at 60? This Old Boy has something to look forward to, God willing, he makes it to that age.

Connect with Dickson Igwe on Facebook and Twitter