Young people, it turns out, are overly optimistic, expecting significant increases in life satisfaction, rather than anticipating the slide down the U-curve. Young adults typically believe that they’ll “beat the average” — that they’ll be the lucky ones who end up with a top job, a happy marriage, and healthy children. Neuroscientists believe that overoptimism is based on biased information processing in the brain, which makes it difficult to correct overly rosy expectations in the young (this bias might actually be evolutionary efficient, as a powerful driver for seeking progress).

As we age, things often don’t turn out as nicely as we planned. We may not climb up the career ladder as quickly as we wished. Or we do, only to find that prestige and a high income are not as satisfying as we expected them to be. At the same time, high expectations about the future adjust downwards. Midlife essentially becomes a time of double misery, made up of disappointments and evaporating aspirations. Paradoxically, those who objectively have the least reason to complain (e.g. if they have a desirable job) often suffer most. They feel ungrateful and disappointed with themselves particularly because their discontent seems so unjustified – which creates a potentially vicious circle. The Atlantic’s contributing editor Jonathan Rauch described several such cases (including his own) in his cover story on mid-life crisis, for which he interviewed me about my research.

It’s at the bottom of the U-curve (the mid-50s, according to the German data) when expected life satisfaction aligns with current satisfaction levels. People come to terms with how their life is playing out. At the same time, the aging brain learns to feel less regret about missed chances, as brain studies have shown. This combination of accepting life and feeling less regret about the past is what makes life satisfaction increase again. And since people over 50 tend to underestimate their future satisfaction, these increases come as an unexpected pleasant surprise, which further raises satisfaction levels.

As a whole, these findings tell a story in which the age U-shape in job (and overall life) satisfaction is driven by unmet aspirations that are painfully felt in midlife, but beneficially abandoned and felt with less regret during old age. Importantly, in the German study, I found this pattern regardless of people’s socio-economic status, their gender, or whether they lived in East or West Germany, despite the cultural differences in the decade right after unification. Periods of “mid-career crisis” seem to be part of a natural developmental process, driven by biology rather than the specifics of a particular job. Hence, drastic career changes are unlikely to make you better off. If the burned out Wall Street lawyer and the dissatisfied NGO activist were to change seats, perhaps neither would end up more content.

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