In someone’s 20s there is still a lot of optimism. People are still in the mindset of “What am I going to be when I grow up?” vs “What I am now that I am grown up”. Not much is set in stone then and the possibilities seem endless. By the end of the decade though, most people have settled out and found their place for better or worse.
I got married shortly after turning 40, and expect to be much happier now than I was during the preceding “dating decade.” Having the freedom of my own business instead of a day job is a big plus, too!
I spent the beginning years of my twenties floundering about anxiously wondering what I was actually going to do with my life, the great recession of 08 didn’t help matters either. I then spent the next good few years in Afghanistan or training to go to Afghanistan, it’s only now in my late twenties that I feel like I’ve actually managed to turn my life around.
As my friend alwaya reminds me when she talks about our 20s: That was when we were having fun and didn’t know it.
True words, actually. Age does put a gloss on days gone by. But each decade has it’s plusses.
Your above statement “A new study suggests you won’t be as happy as you are now for about another four decades.” …what that means to me is that your saying a new study-- wont life be difficult when you get older. people have to take care of you, if your poor you live with a low income of social security unless of course science improves and we live like we are 20 always and learn to live in harmony. anyways i’m getting off topic, new study means its new it hasn’t been proven as a fact yet. facts are things that work. well. your statement is true if we get older but not fragile or dumber 
Hm. I frequently go around half-euphoric in my mid-50s. Maybe I feel that way because things now are simply in contrast to my oh-so-difficult 40s! Not to be flippant, but when challenges ease up or or resolved, we might define “normal” as “wonderful.” Actually, my challenges are certainly not over, but I’ve redefined a lot.
But the comments here point to “happiness decades” being different for everyone.
I think we are happiest when those we love are doing OK and we have more things on the plus side than the minus side–emotionally, financially, and pretty much every which way. There are good times and bad throughout most lifetimes. Trying to nail it to a particular decade or time of life seems very silly to me.
I think I liked 1-10 the bestest.
I would have said the last ten years were my happiest, until tragedy after illness after business drop-off occurred! Now I’m on anti-depressants for the first time in my life. I’m hoping things will level out now??
@MaineLonghorn, you’ve been through a lot. It’s understandable. I hope things level out for you as well.
I think my own kids, almost 22 and 26, have some significant struggles, though they’re doing ok and probably neither would call herself unhappy. I don’t see either really having the fun and games and freedom experience often associated with single people their ages (and they both seem, for now, intractably single which is an issue for them). A lot of their friends/peers - though not all, of course - seem anxious and ungrounded. I think my own twenties (also in a bad economy) were mostly very happy - I got to travel, work in another country, stumble into an occupation I like, survive grad school with a very close band of fellow-sufferers, make some great friends, meet my future spouse. I was also a bit wilder than my kids, though careful to stay out of actual trouble, and lucky to have an innately optimistic temperament. I deeply hope my kids have happier times to come. As someone said above, I want them “feeling settled and launched”.