0.   Using the Cantril Ladder’s venerable question, I asked respondents to rate their life satisfaction on a zero-to-ten scale. I also asked them for three words or phrases describing each decade of life. Some respondents were people I knew, some of them were random strangers, and some were adult-education students in an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute program at Bradley University, in Peoria, Illinois. I’m grateful to Bradley University professor Marjorie Getz for facilitating this research. Because its purpose was journalistic, my survey did not seek or achieve scientific validity, but the results were consistent with the academic research.