Sir, – Further to “I’m not 50. Yet. But I’m having an existential crisis” (Life, August 1st), I can offer Conor Pope some good news! He is right that age is always relative, and most of us will regard “old” as about 20 year older than us, no matter what age we are. We prefer the term “older” because it is less subjective as we are all older and younger than other people, no matter our age. The good news is that the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (Tilda) shows that our self-reported quality of life peaks around 65 to 67 years and declines after 80. This is supported by the CSO Wellbeing study (2015) which reported that life satisfaction for 65-69 year olds was high or very high (79.5 per cent), and those aged between 70 and 79, 81.9 per cent expressed high or very high life satisfaction. – Yours, etc,
CIARÁN McKINNEY,
Age & Opportunity,
Dublin 9.