As Hope entered her 50s, though, something clicked in her, and she felt somehow replenished.

“When I was young,” she says, speaking by phone from her office at a small college in upstate New York, “I used to drive like an old lady. I drive faster now. I don’t worry so much about what other people think. I speak my mind. I don’t know if it was anything in particular. It was just a gradual awakening after I turned 50.”

She compares her age to her favorite season, autumn. “It’s when the trees are full of color and have their most extreme beauty, just before winter,” she says. “That’s the same season for being in your 50s.”

Two years ago, Hope got engaged. But she doesn’t attribute happiness to late love. Rather, she attributes late love to happiness. In a sense, time wedged an opening—like a stream of water cracking open a big boulder—that made it possible for someone to come into her life.

Hope’s growing happiness may be more the rule than an exception, with a number of recent reports suggesting that just when people start needing glasses to read a restaurant menu, life begins to come into clearer focus.

Most recently there was the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a survey of 1.2 million Americans between 18 and 85, as well as a separate Gallup poll of 340,000. Both surveys produced similar findings—that people’s sense of well-being follows a U-shaped trend, starting high in youth, dipping in one’s 30s and 40s, hitting a low point at 50, then beginning to gather momentum.

“We don’t know why well-being seems to rise with age,” says Nikki Duggan, Healthways’ director of operations and analytics. “Though one trend we see is that over time people feel more respected.”

Other factors, say experts, may be that over time people become more realistic about their expectations, more accepting about what they have or haven’t achieved, and more resilient when things don’t pan out. For many, there’s a growing appreciation of life that may be missing in the years of striving and stress typical of one’s 30s and 40s.

The topic of happiness has blossomed into an industry—from the positive psychology movement to new ways of approaching mental health treatment to happiness skill-building to a book-publishing niche that has almost become its own genre. There are international conferences that look at what happiness means to business and to national and global economics; the south Asian kingdom of Bhutan has a Gross National Happiness Index; Britain recently started a project to measure the national GWB, or general well-being, and this year, Australia hosted the 5th annual World Happiness Forum.

Happiness is particularly relevant in the U.S., which was, after all, the first country to make the happiness of its citizens part of its core mission, starting with the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson substituted what must have seemed an ethereal notion, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” for a more common phrase of the time, “life, liberty and property.” The ideal of happiness was truly radical at a time when humans were generally presumed to be subjects whose sole purpose was to serve the state and its rulers.

The topic is no less important now than it was then, but the recent efforts to compare the relative happiness of the different ages is more relevant than ever: It is projected that life expectancy in the U.S. will rise to 79.5 years by 2020. According to the 2010 census, 40.3 million Americans, 13 percent of the population, are 65 or older. That number is expected to reach 72 million by 2030 and more than double to 89 million, 20 percent of the population, by 2050.

To be sure, happiness is an elusive topic, a vague term for something we seek without necessarily having a definite idea of what it is we’re after.

llustrations by Koren Shadmi.

“There’s a lot of confusion between happiness and pleasure,” says Matthieu Ricard, author of Why Meditate? Working With Thoughts and Emotions and the French translator for the Dalai Lama. “Happiness is about well-being, a sense of fulfillment. That’s different from how happiness is promoted—it’s all about do this or use that and you’ll find happiness. That is more of a recipe for exhaustion than flourishing. It has to be more a way of being than a momentary pleasant stage. In that sense, pleasure can contribute to happiness, but it can also undermine it, if, for example, it becomes a destructive obsession.”

Many experts prefer the term “well-being” because it describes an overall condition rather than a fleeting feeling of pleasure. Martin Seligman, the University of Pennsylvania psychologist whom many regard as the father of positive psychology, called his latest book Flourish, and introduced an acronym, PERMA, to describe the elements of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.

The recent studies suggest that as people age they get better at all of the above. Reported in a series of graphs, Gallup-Healthways’ survey showed that as the years go by Americans are more satisfied and feel more respected at work. They smoke less and eat a healthier diet. Older Americans worry less and are less sad and depressed than people in other age groups, and that trend rises into their 60s despite less robust physical health.

“As you age, you realize that you can be happy in the present,” says Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage. “You don’t have to wait until you achieve something more. It’s something you cultivate in the present by connecting to social support networks and paying attention to what’s happening in your life right now.”

Another factor may be the ability to bounce back from adversity or just to keep things in perspective.

“My sense is that unless people change their attitudes and behavior, they remain with the optimal levels of happiness they have,” Achor says. “But what they do gain over time is resilience. They can experience stress and failure and find they’re able to overcome.”

The flip side of the age issue is that unhappiness—a deep, fundamental sense that life has gone off the rails—is occurring at younger ages, with depression occurring earlier than in the past. The mean onset of depression diagnoses in the 1970s was 29. In 2006, it was 14.5. Achor blames technology for this phenomenon. He describes what has happened to modern citizens as a “connection paradox” caused by the urgency to be always linked up and wired in. You can’t be happy if you’re compulsively trying to connect because of a feeling—or fear—of being disconnected or disengaged.

“People are doing too many things,” Achor says. “They’re stressed, running after everything possible. Their brains, even in down moments, are not down. They’re connected to virtual worlds and multitasking. But what we know from research is that the more personal projects a person has on their plate, the more their brain’s resources are spread out, and they don’t get to enjoy them. The more multi-tasking we do, the less happy we are.”

Focus and self-discipline improve with age, and there may be some advantage for people who didn’t grow up mesmerized and conditioned by omnipresent flashing screens, say the experts.

Age, especially for people who have enjoyed a moderate level of success, may also ease the disappointment of youthful high hopes of fame and fortune.

For Roger Stewart, now retired, contentment came from accepting that what he had achieved in his career—a highly rewarding post as an executive editor at a big-city newspaper—was more than adequate professionally, even though he’d started in journalism with the goal of becoming well-known on a national scale.

“When I was in my 30s, I remember listening to an older man I looked up to who was a professor of philosophy, saying, ‘Hey, there are certain stars in the world of philosophy, and I know now I’m never going to be one of them, but I’m comfortable with who I am,’” Roger recalls. “I remember feeling shocked by that. How could he accept being anything but number one? Today, I get it. Making it to the so-called ‘top of your profession’ is not the key to happiness.”

“As you get older, your outlook certainly does change,” says Hope Ferguson, the communications specialist. A number of factors come into play, and one of the biggest is the inescapable experience of living through enough triumphs and setbacks to put things in perspective. “You see the passage of time. You’ve lost people. You see that life has an end, and that makes you want to seize the moment.”

None other than Aristotle asserted that happiness is the goal of goals. But, in researching The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study, Howard S. Friedman, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, came to the conclusion that perhaps happiness ought not to be a goal at all.

Friedman wasn’t even looking at happiness per se. Rather he was analyzing factors that influence longevity. What he found was that “certain behaviors that resulted in happiness also added to people’s longevity.”

In other words, there’s a correlation between happiness and health, and therefore lifespan. But what’s unique about Friedman’s discovery is that “happiness was really just a byproduct of certain habits” rather than an end in itself. For this reason, Friedman doesn’t believe in the happiness skill-building exercises advocated by many positive psychologists because those habits are not sustainable over time and, more important, because they are less vital than the basic healthy habits that we all know are good for us.

“The pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of doing meaningful things,” Friedman says. “Happy people have certain behaviors. They’re active, they’re socially engaged, they have good relationships and are involved in their communities. They’re absorbed by their work and careers. If they want to do something, they don’t worry that it’s going to take too much effort or be too stressful. They’re persistent. They’re not impulsive. They don’t drink too much. They’re not attracted by destructive relationships. They’re not vain or self-centered. What we found is that happiness is what you get when you live a thriving life.”

Out of Friedman’s research comes a word of warning to those who are happy now, and a word of encouragement to those who are still reaching for it: People who have good habits can lose them and people who don’t can get them.

Even though happiness may naturally rise in one’s 50s—a reward for a life well lived—each of us has to keep earning that reward at every age.

The Pursuit of Happiness The Saturday Evening Post

Always an overachiever with a head for numbers and a personality for people, Chuck let his career goals guide him for years. But eventually he began to feel the strain. As the banking industry underwent a wave of mergers and acquisitions, Chuck’s work was taking him to city after city throughout the Midwest where he would close and consolidate branches, handing out pink slips to long-time employees and fielding tough questions from nervous customers.

After twenty years in the corporate world, Chuck recognized that he had stopped enjoying his work. Making matters worse, a new crop of MBA-toting graduates were entering the field, solving management problems by crunching numbers rather than by building and nurturing relationships. With two young children, Chuck and Peggy realized that they were missing out on milestones and together time. They yearned to find a place to call their “forever home”—a place where they could become part of a community and watch their kids grow up in a stable environment. “It was time for a change,” he says.

In 2001, Chuck, then 45, called it quits.

Today, he is a middle school math teacher in St. Marys, Georgia, a sleepy little coastal town at the southeastern-most tip of Georgia. The job pays just a little more than $40,000 per year. Chuck is also a city councilman and president of the St. Marys Middle School Parent Teacher Student Organization. The couple that moved 12 times in the first 20 years of marriage has now held on to the same zip code for a decade—and they couldn’t be happier.

And, to cap it all off, Chuck was recently named St. Marys Middle School “Teacher of the Year.”

Chuck Trader and his wife Peggy discovered their “forever home” after taking a six-week road trip in a rented motor home along the East Coast. Photo Courtesy Chuck Trader.

Clearly this was the right move for Chuck and his family, but finding the perfect place to plant the family’s roots took some time. The search for their “forever home” began in early 2000 when Chuck and Peggy took the kids on a six-week road trip in a rented motor home along the East Coast. Using statistics and a personal wish-list as their guide, they stopped in 12 towns that met their exacting criteria: good schools, low crime, proximity to major metropolitan areas, coastal location, low cost of living, friendly feel, and other must-haves. St. Marys satisfied everything on their list. After spending the day in town talking to the mayor and other locals and seeing the sights, they were sold on this small waterfront community of approximately 14,000.

“We said, ‘Is this real?’ We went away for a few days and came back, just to be sure. And it felt good to be back,” Chuck says.

The long trip was the beginning of a new era, one in which family time trumped work time. By 2001, the Traders had settled in St. Marys for good, throwing themselves into community life and rehabbing a pre-Civil War-era home. Chuck initially worked for the city of St. Marys as finance director and interim city manager, and he became deeply involved in his children’s school.

It was while becoming active in his children’s school that Chuck realized he had found his true calling: teaching. After earning a provisional certificate by passing a slew of tests, he was hired as a middle school mathematics instructor. Within a year, he enrolled in online courses at Grand Canyon University to earn his Masters in Secondary Education and professional certification. “It was quite grueling,” recalls Chuck, who worked full time while finishing the two-year program in 14 months. But the payoff was well worth the sacrifice. “There is no other profession where you have the opportunity to favorably affect the outcomes and impact the lives of so many young adults,” says Chuck. “Teaching truly is an opportunity to invest in the future of our society.”

Chuck’s life today bears little resemblance to his former corporate existence. He quickly rattles off an eclectic list of the differences: more family time, reduced expenses, deeper relationships, increased understanding of the challenges faced by lower socioeconomic families, shorter lunches, and longer time on his feet, to name only a few.

In the classroom Chuck is able to make lesson plans real by drawing upon his experience in business. And he captivates students by sharing jaw-dropping stories from his past—such as tales of $100 million deals he helped close. “When you’re working with a kid who is struggling and working very hard, it’s very fulfilling to see the smile and satisfaction when they suddenly ‘get it.’ It’s what makes teaching great,” says Chuck.

The former businessman has “a knack for reaching students others deem unreachable,” says Michael Wooden, St. Marys Middle School principal. “Each time I visited Mr. Trader’s classroom, all of his students were engaged in his lesson. Not only is he an extremely knowledgeable mathematics teacher, he is equally skilled at reaching students at whatever academic level they come to him.”

Chuck’s students scored a 96 percent pass rate on the mathematics portion of the most recent statewide student assessment. “That is a very difficult achievement for any teacher,” notes Wooden. “Not to mention one who has a large group of students who are considered ‘at risk.’”

Chuck and Peggy Trader have much to be thankful for these days as they live their version of the American Dream. Their children, plucked from private school when the family moved to St. Marys, have grown up in a more diverse public school environment and learned to do more with less as their parents scaled back. Yet, they are thriving. Evan, 19, is a sophomore at Georgia Tech, majoring in aeronautical engineering and economics. Hannah, 16, is on her school’s gymnastics team and a member of the National Beta Club, an organization that promotes academic achievement, character, service, and leadership among elementary and secondary school students.

“Moving here was at my insistence,” Peggy says. “It was an effort to focus on the family and not let the corporate job rule our lives anymore. We’ve refocused our priorities on having a more stable family life.”

Chuck Trader today is a walking Chamber of Commerce for St. Marys, extolling its coastal location, beautiful landscape, friendly folks, and strong educational system. He looks back on his corporate past without regret. There is pride in all that he achieved, but he well understands that teaching is what he was truly meant to do. “My days are long and can be challenging, but I feel a deep sense of accomplishment as I see students grow and develop into young adults,” he says. “Each and every day I make a difference in the life of a child. And that has tremendous value beyond the income provided.”

From Financier to Teacher (and Happiness) The Saturday Evening Post