How I Learned to Want Less

Editor’s note: This story ran previously in The Arrow, AARP’s online magazine for Gen-X men​.

I’ve been teaching memoir-writing to older adults for more than 20 years, and whenever someone gets stuck or insists they have nothing to write about, I give them a prompt: “What has been your greatest joy in life?” In the two decades I’ve been asking that question, no one has ever mentioned their 1970 Corvette Stingray or their beach house in Delray.

Instead, they confess: “It’s watching my son run to me when he sees me,” or “Sitting outdoors on a summer afternoon with my dog by my side.”

We’re unhappier than ever. The United States dropped to its lowest position ever in the 2025 World Happiness Report, ranking 24th globally. (In 2023, we were the 15th happiest country, for comparison.)

Psychologists and philosophers tell us this shouldn’t surprise us. After all, we’re lonelier and more isolated than ever; the only way to achieve true life satisfaction and lasting happiness, they say, is through connection with friends, family, community, church and charity.

But you know what? In the last few years, many of my friends and neighbors have revealed themselves as radicals with views so wacky I send them immediately to voicemail. Family, meanwhile, remains a minefield. I’m long past finding any solace in church (blame 12 years of Catholic schooling). And as far as volunteering, the last thing I want to be doing in my twilight years is delivering Meals on Wheels.

The last few years have changed my view of connection. I have tasted aloneness, and it wasn’t so bad. It reminded me of nonfat yogurt.

This is not as grumpy as it sounds. I am still quite social. It’s just that these years of politics and the pandemic have taught me that, yes, connection is important for happiness. But lately, it’s myself I’ve been connecting to.

Nowadays, I’m finding joy in an iced pint of frothy IPA sipped on my deck at the end of a day in which I’ve used my body.