How has your emotional state changed as you've grown older?

[Liberal_in_LA]

How does DU compare to results of the current CNN poll:

How has your emotional state changed as you've grown older?
Happier 43% 11147
Less happy 42% 10896
No change 14% 3736
Total Votes: 25779

http://www.cnn.com/

[orleans]

1. i don't see the "more indifferent" catagory, so i didn't vote. n/t

[abumbyanyothername]

2. My emotional state changes

every 5 minutes or so.

Maybe not quite that bad, but one day I am up, the next day down. It's not bipolar or anything, but it's driving me crazy.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Since my retirement, I am much happier on the whole.

I have a lot more freedom in my daily activities, and I am taking advantage of that!

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. Yay CAPeggy!

:)

[Trajan]

5. No .... not one bit ....

My emotional state is EXACTLY the same as it was when I first popped out of the womb .....

Some questions really don't need to be asked ....

[Zookeeper]

6. I'm living with three teenage children, so, I have to answer:

"less happy."

[Blue Diadem]

12. Oh gosh, I had 3 teens at once too.

Thought I was going to lose my mind.

It gets better, really it does.

[abq e streeter]

7. happier by default, as in somewhat less miserable

but also in one way, getting more depressed as I see my beloved America disintegrating before my eyes , with my party for the most part standing on the sidelines with its thumb ( if not its head) up its ass...

[Mythsaje]

8. Amen...

Personally I'm a lot more comfortable and secure in myself.

In my country...not so much.

[kedrys]

9. Less happy

I know that nobody's life turns out the way they thought it should, but I could have done without the major hits. :(

[blogslut]

10. Sustained happiness, to me, is unrealistic

Perhaps that's because I define happiness as joy. True joy is fleeting. The person that is continuously joyful is probably suffering from manic personality disorder.

Yes, there are people with lighthearted personas. Believe it or not, I happen to be one of them. But our personas are masks and we all wear them. Behind the masks, most of us are hiding similar fears, insecurities and doubts. The outward cynic hides their vulnerability to wishful thinking and romanticism. The bubbly person hides their inner fatalist.

What I have learned as I have gotten older is that the uneventful life is preferable to misery and far more tolerable than some futile quest to experience joy 24/7.

[seabeyond]

13. interesting

and having read so many of your posts in the past, i get a sense. kinda thinkin about the gal that rebelled, lol. i hear what you are saying. i have had the more mellow, not wanting the drama or "eventful" life. i also have that essence of joy within, constantly now instead of a hit and miss. i may have spurts of anger or other, rarely if ever sadness anymore, but the contentment and doing fine is always there.

i have a brother though that i swear is bipolar. he needs, demands, insists on the highs and lows. well, the highs, which bring along the lows. he says it is life, living life, the only way. there is no way he can see living other way. he hasnt gotten to the place where uneventful is a good thing.

that life is as foreign to me, as mine is to him.

[blogslut]

14. I knew this guy

He had a very hard childhood. His father was cruel and physically abusive. His mother was enabling. He was passed between relatives...all that stuff.

This guy once did my astrological chart. He showed me that the eventful portion of my life would take place in the latter half. He said with regret, "According to my chart, the eventful part of my life is over".

I suggested to him that perhaps he was misinterpreting the ambiguity of his chart. Could his uneventful future not also mean that he would no longer suffer the cruelty of others? Maybe the stars were telling him that the rest of his life would be peaceful as opposed to filled with anguish and bad events.

This is how I define "happiness". A peaceful life.

The fact is, the latter part of my has been full of anguish and bad events. When I was younger the drama in my world was of my own design. I was reactionary and always ready for a fight. Then, I went through real hell and came out the other side a changed person. Now, I live for the uneventful.

[seabeyond]

15. A peaceful life.

ya... perfect. as i was reading your post, and uneventful, i am thinking i have the peaceful, insist and demand that life (so you are right on there. i wont allow anything less even in mess) but life is certainly not uneventful either. was thinking i used "eventful" in terms of bad (drama, emotional), but lots goes on in life, very eventful, just not the high drama stuff, even with teenagers, lol (so far, fingers crossed, knock on wood)

[ThomWV]

11. I quit drinking at 50 - so I know with certainty that my life is a lot happier now.

My happiness is easily measured by the drinks not drunk.

[slackmaster]

16. Happier, more stable, more difficult to piss off, much harder to fool

:hi: