The Less Line

Crossing into peace and ease...

I’ve sometimes wondered why data consistently show that older people are happier than younger ones. Of course, every individual is different, but on the whole.

If we’re fortunate enough to season into life, at some point our bodies won’t quite hum along the way they used to. They’ll settle into a gentler pace, hurt a bit to a lot more (raising my hand). Given enough time, even the most genetically blessed and thoughtful caretakers of body and mind will become less able and agile. Our brains will process a beat slower and forget a bit more quickly, energy will sometimes wane. It’s not an overnight thing, but rather a gentle evolution over many decades. If we’re lucky.

And, yet, on the whole, for more people than less, life is better.

We’re generally happier when we’re kids, then it slumps through midlife and returns later. Again, not everyone, but on average. It’s a phenomenon referred to as the "happiness U-curve."

What gives?

Researchers have been exploring the basis for quite some time.

With age, we tend to feel more settled, less driven to prove our worth to others or be concerned about their opinions. We tend to be better at managing emotions, focusing on positive experiences, and dealing with challenges and setbacks. Meaning becomes a bigger focus. Comparison seeds to acceptance. And you’re more at peace with the state of things, less in fight mode. Again, your mileage may vary, but broad data back these up these observations.

I can see all of that. Still, I wonder if there’s something else. A shift that, in no small way, kickstarts the journey up the right side of the happiness U.

In my experience, there's this ethereal line that often exists in nearly every person’s life. You can’t see or touch it. Most don’t know it exists, let alone if and when they’ve crossed it until some time later.

Some traverse it early, others fight it.

I call it the Less Line.

It’s that moment where you decide, even if not consciously, that life is less about more and more about less.

Much of our early and middle lives is about money, status, and stuff. Enough never is, because we measure success not by what feels right and good to us, but rather what places us ahead of others. This causes a lot of suffering, but it’s also just human nature. Nearly impossible to fight against, at least early on. We are wired for social comparison.

Bundled with a range of other influences and expectations, it leads to a life of profound striving, which is not innately bad. But, it also tends to seed isolation, self-estrangement, and complexity. We’re constantly in chase-mode, often shedding allegedly deeply-held values, and formerly closely-held humans.

Managing the twister of pursuit invites compounding swarms of complexity.

And, for all but a few who are preternaturally wired to thrive in this frenetic state, that translates into…

Stress.

Not the good kind that leads to growth, but the bad kind that leads to overwhelm, burnout, anxiety, depression, disregulation, and all that other fun stuff.

We surrender to this as “just the way life is,” especially if the quest for money, status and stuff bears fruit. Keep on, keeping on. We’ve now got bounty to point to as justification for the slow demise of health and happiness.

And, sometimes, if the spoils are built around a continued and thoughtful process of evaluation, course-correction and integration, it can work. You can have all the stuff, and be legitimately pretty good with life.

But, often times, I’d argue more often than not, there’s certain ambient undercurrent of brutality that accompanies life on these terms, delivering more and more moments into the gray fuselage of exhaustion, complacency, and futility.

Until we get old enough, or something happens, that walks us to the edge of the Less Line. The one that, should we choose to cross it, nudges down the path to simplicity, connection, and peace. Not delusion, or utopia, we’ve still gotta live in the world, but just enough ease to let us weave the fabric our daily lives into a more present and peaceful repose.

It’s not that the Less Line is unavailable to us earlier in life. It’s that the younger we are, the less open we tend to be to crossing it. It’s not that we don’t believe in it. It’s that, in doing so, we risk becoming the The Weirdos. Outliers. Outcast. Everyone around us is still in pursuit, accumulation and complexity mode, few will get your decision to choose something else. You’ll be the odd one out, which can translate to pain. So, there’s no shame here. Everything is a tradeoff.

Age, though, is the great leveler. Not equalizer, that never happens. But it tends to level us, in all the worst and, thankfully, best ways. Individually, and relationally.

We’ve seen the cost of living on the other side of the Less Line. We’ve felt it viscerally, even if it’s given us so much of what we aspired toward. We know the toll and feel less of a need to keep to the bargain we made that got us here.

We’ve also likely known friends and family who are no longer here to make the choice. Plus, stepping into less mode has become normalized. We don’t risk getting kicked out of the friend club, at least not nearly as often.

So, we begin a process of simplifying, sometimes shedding, giving away more of not only our stuff, but ourselves. That doesn’t necessarily mean we become minimalists, it’s more a state-of-mind that may or may not be accompanied by an excising of things.

Pursuit cedes to allowing. Aggression to acceptance. Accumulation to spaciousness and ease. Status and isolation to connection and savoring.

It’s not about giving up or complacency, relinquishing yourself to the mundacity of “fine.” It’s about shifting the metrics by which we measure what a good life looks like. Reorienting around a simpler sensibility, the depth and quality of genuine relationships, the ability to feel safe and secure, access to good care, and opportunities to lose ourselves in joy.

Which brings us back to that Happiness U-Curve.

So often, we spend our adult lives in the mad pursuit of the way we felt in the best moments of our childhood.

When less was truly more.