Washington, DC - George Orwell said happiness can exist only in acceptance and apparently you can go through a large chunk of your life achieving acceptance, says the Association of Mature American Citizens.

In fact, according to David Brooks, who writes about culture and social science, older folks are happier folks and that the happiest people of them all are those between the ages of 82 and 85.

In a recent OpEd article in the New York Times, Brooks wrote: "I'd rather think that elder happiness is an accomplishment, not a condition that people get better at living through effort, by mastering specific skills. I'd like to think that people get steadily better at handling life's challenges. In middle age, they are confronted by stressful challenges they can't control, like having teenage children. But, in old age, they have more control over the challenges they will tackle and they get even better at addressing them."

So, says AMAC, as the new year gets under way and we consider the fact that we are all another year older, take heart and consider the real possibility that the coming years will, indeed, be among the happiest of our lives.