Kourtney Kardashian wasn’t too excited about turning 40, getting teary-eyed and anxious during a conversation with her sister Khloe in a new promo for the 17th season of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which premiers in the fall.
The eldest Kardashian celebrated her birthday in April and told Khloe that turning 40 “almost makes you analyze, like, where you’re at in your life... It’s just giving me anxiety.”
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Her birthday came just two weeks after she launched the lifestyle website Poosh, and Kourtney told Khloe that the new business — coupled with her impending birthday — made her wish she had more time.
“It, like, gives me anxiety and I don’t know why. ... I have so much and I should just be so happy,” Kourtney said, crying.
“But you’re not happy?” asked Khloe, before Kourtney responded: “I mean I am, but then sometimes I’m just, like, it makes you really, like, analyze just, like, where you’re at. ... Sometimes I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’”
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Kourtney said she’s just “living life” but vacillates between doing “stupid shit to distract” herself from “really thinking about stuff that is maybe more important” and telling herself to “Live your life! Have fun!”
Khloe ensured her sister that it’s “completely OK” for her to do that.
“What if you enjoy the life that you have right now? If you’re happy that’s all that should matter for any of us,” Khloe said. “But I really don’t think your soul is happy. I think you feel incomplete somewhere. That you’re scared.”
Despite celebrating the Big 4-0 with an over-the-top birthday bash complete with custom engraved bottles of Don Julio tequila and a cake illustrated with her naked body, Kourtney’s feelings of anxiety about turning 40 are pretty on par with the rest of the world when it comes to aging.
A study by researchers at the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College found that women in the United States are, on average, most unhappy at age 40. (Men reach peak misery at 50.)
“Some people suffer more than others,” the authors wrote, but the feelings of middle-age misery are consistent across demographics. “It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor, and to those with and without children.”
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Luckily for Kourtney, or anyone else turning 40, the study had an upswing: The researchers found that happiness levels followed a U-shaped curve, “with happiness higher towards the start and end of our lives and leaving us most miserable in middle age.”
So, here’s to hoping future birthdays are a little bit brighter for you, Kourtney.
Clarification: This article originally stated that season 17 would premiere in September, per a public listing on Google and MSN. A spokesperson for NBC has told HuffPost that the network has not yet set a date for the premiere, and this article has been updated accordingly.
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