If I just look at the life expectancy tables, I am now in the second half of my life. And I can see it. The pain is increasingly common and parts of my body begin to fail. But good news for us all in middle age. There is one thing we can look forward to (in addition to the attacking of the government pension system at the expense of our children).
A group of Researchers around Tim Lomas van Harvard Piggybacked in the Global Blue Survey, who asked more than 200,000 people in 22 countries early for five years to assess how they think about different aspects of life. One item was the question: “In general. How often do you think you have peace with your thoughts and feelings?”
Here is the share of the population that states that they are in peace with themselves often or always in the 22 countries.
People feel at peace with themselves
Source: Lomas et al. (2025)
It is really a strange order. While everyone who has ever read about surveys from the best places to live, etc. would have expected Sweden to be above the top, I am surprised to see Egypt there too. In the meantime I am not so surprised to see Turkey at the bottom, but why Spain?
The researchers do not explain or analyze results at a country level at a deeper level, but they do give results based on socio -economic variables. And they are more logical for me. The most important thing is that the older people get, the more they feel inner peace. Religious people also feel more in peace than non -religious people. And married people feel considerably more inner peace than unmarried and single people.
Inner peace increases with age
Source: Lomas et al. (2025)
There is no information in the paper of what drives these feelings, because it is only a first presentation of research results pending further analysis of causal drivers. But the pattern that emerges is the pattern that people who no longer compete with other people (whether it is for a job, is a salary increase, a spouse, etc.) simply happier. Or as Lili Tomlin said so memorable: “The problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat.”
#good #older