Middle-Age Misery

Jan. 29, 2008— -- Happiness. It's actually part of what America was supposed to be about. The pursuit of happiness -- one of our unalienable rights along with life and liberty -- but is happiness measurable?

Apparently so, according to a study that hit the headlines Tuesday.

It may be hard to be a teenager. And it's not always easy growing old. But it's really the middle years that are the problem according to Andrew Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick in Coventry England and the lead British scholar on the study.

"We find that all over the world happiness and mental health seem to follow a giant U-shape in life. That people are happy, have high mental health in their 20s. Then they swoop down and bottom out in their 40s and the best news is they become happier and happier in their 50s, 60s and 70s."

It's age 44 that they've pinpointed as the unhappiest point of life.

When they get older, "our guess is that people cut themselves a little slack. You might say they accept they're not going to be general manager of their company, they're not going to win the Nobel Prize. Once they've forgiven themselves then that's perhaps why it becomes easier to become more fulfilled in life," Oswald found.

But we wondered, is happiness really measurable?

We asked National Public Radio's Eric Weiner, who just published "The Geography of Bliss," which chronicles his journeys around the world to find out where people are happiest. Weiner, formerly a foreign correspondent, often found himself seeking out news that could be quite miserable.

"It's worthwhile work, it's rewarding work; it can also be a real bummer. Personally for myself, I found it to be a bummer, waking up every day and seeking out the most miserable places and the most miserable people in the world. So I thought what if I spent one year traveling the world seeking out the happiest places and the happiest people?"

The unhappiest place Weiner found -- Moldova.

And the happiest? "It's sort of a three way tie between Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland, depending on the survey," Weiner said.