elfs followed suit a few days ago, and his daughter asked him about what it was like. He writes as follows:Over dinner [she] asked me if people liked being forty. I thought about it for a minute and then said, "I do." I tried to explain, as best as I could, that there were ways of being happy that you either learned or your failed to learn, and when you got to forty if you had learned them you could be happy, and if you didn't, you probably couldn't. The satisfaction of a job well done, the happiness of a meal well-made for friends and family, the contentment of a working household, the joy of really raising children into adults. I think I went over her head a little but, yeah, I got it across to her that it's okay to be forty.
Quoted with permission from a friends-locked entry.
