Letters to the editor

This refers to the editorial “Retirement glow” (The Financial Express, June 9). Young age is the happiest in any person’s life. So leave out the age group from ages 1 to 15. With the onset of teenage, a person starts to change. For many, this phase can be a miserable one. Productive years—ages 20 to 40—are the whims of a man. No matter what he dictates, the family follows. At this point, he gets almost everything he wants (except wife’s obedience, of course). And his expectations start rising—resulting concurrently in disappointments. That is why, despite having much more accomplishments than in any other phase of life, generally a man is not ‘really’ happy in this phase. Old age is more a matter of preparation upfront. One who is not prepared will be thrown off equilibrium. The passing away of a spouse can be difficult as also the aftermath—yet this too depends on whether the spouse was helpful and caring or otherwise. A single thumb rule to figure out the level of happiness is difficult. Yet we can safely infer that as long as a person chooses to be happy, none can prevent him from being so! But pray, what is the use of such surveys? Where do Tony Beatton and Paul Frijters get the money from for such commercially infeasible surveys?

Raghu Seshadri