George Herald | The Uphill to Happiness

Translate to:


News	Classifieds	Directory

The Uphill to Happiness
16:32 (GMT+2), Mon, 25 June 2012

Soms is daar ‘n geringe verskil tussen ‘n openbaring en ‘n openbaarmaking. Eersgenoemde is gelyk aan daardie euforiese gevoel wat jy ervaar wanneer die spreekwoordelike ‘gloeilampie’ bokant jou kop verskyn. Laasgenoemde is dikwels soos om te vervel – dis ‘n afsigtelike dog noodsaaklike proses wat nadat die ongemak daarvan verby is, ‘n bevrydende geheelbeeld onthul.

Daar is verskeie sulke werklikhede langs ‘n mens se lewenspad. Ek sou reken dat verjaarsdae sulke tye sou kon wees. Vandeesweek kondig só ‘n dualistiese afskilfering vir my aan. My ouma, wat verlede week verjaar het, weier al jarelank botweg om haar ouderom bekend te maak.

Ek vind dit eintlik effe lagwekkend, want meeste van ons het al haar ID-dokument onder oë gehad en immers Matriek-wiskunde geslaag, hoe naelskraap ookal. Boonop sou ek, as ek sy was baie grootbek gewees het oor my ouderom, want op amper 90, is sy gesonder en meer ingelig oor wêreldsake as ek. En saam met al die ander stukkies lof wat ek haar kan toeswaai, is haar hare se donker 100% natuurlik, unlike me ‘who pays less at Clicks’! Op haar verjaarsdag is sy, wat deurgaans die blymoedigste grapjas is wat ek ken, egter uiters onsmaaklik.
In my amper-nie-meer-so-jeugdige-voortvarendheid, het ek tot onlangs sommer maklik my ouderdom te kenne gegee, totdat ek nou die dag lees wat Mark Twain oor sulke blatantheid te sê gehad het: ‘n Vrou wat haar ouderdom verklap, sal ook nie ander geheime kan bewaar nie.

Eish – van toe af swyg ek soos die graf oor die aantal kersies op my jaarsdag koek!

Daar is egter iets omtrent ouerword wat terselfdertyd fassinerend en skrikwekkend is. Met verdrag word ‘n mense tydens hierdie proses ontdaan van baie dinge. Spiere word slapper en papper. Gehoor en sig word onduideliker. Mense vertoon verkreukeld, veral in areas wat nie deur kleding verskans kan word nie. Jy krimp en beweeg stadiger. En baie van die bewegende dele, het dikwels ‘n bietjie ‘Deep Heat’ nodig om behoorlik te kan funksioneer.

Dit klink na ‘n misrabele voortuitsig, maar dit is skynbaar nie. Die rede hiervoor het ek onlangs opgespoor tydens ‘n internet-soektog na vir geskikte materiaal oor dansende oumense en dit lees soos volg:
A large Gallup poll has found that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older, and researchers are not sure why. On the global measure, people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.

In measuring immediate well-being, taken as yesterday’s emotional state — the researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to 85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the low point of our early 50s.

Other experts were impressed with the work. Andrew J. Oswald, a professor of psychology at Warwick Business School in England, who has published several studies on human happiness, called the findings important and, in some ways, heartening.

“It’s a very encouraging fact that we can expect to be happier in our early 80’s than we were in our 20’s,” he said. “And it’s not being driven predominantly by things that happen in life. It’s something very deep and quite human that seems to be driving this.” The study was however not designed to figure out which factors make people happy. But the researchers did look at four possibilities: the sex of the interviewee, whether the person had a partner, whether there were children at home and employment status. “These are four reasonable candidates,” Dr. Stone said, “but they don’t make much difference.”

For people under 50 who may sometimes feel gloomy, there may be consolation here. The view seems a bit bleak right now, but look at the bright side: you are getting old.

Dus, gaan ek minstens vir nog 11 verjaarsdae progressief ‘ponder’ oor ‘life in general’ voordat die opdraaende pad my tot by my eindbestemming – synde euforieseg geluksaligheid sal neem. Wat ‘n openbaring is daar nie in die openbaarmaking?