Several years ago, Wendy Lustbader, a former social worker, and her husband were on a bus in New Zealand. She says they were, by far, the oldest people on the bus, with most of their fellow travelers being in the late teens or early 20s.

Along the way, the bus driver urged everyone to say something into the microphone. When it was Wendy’s turn, she looked around at the young faces and said, “Don’t worry. These are the worst years of your life.”

She says she was mobbed by the young people, who thanked her for giving them this opposite perception of life.

Wendy says over the years she’s come to believe this philosophy so much that it’s the subject of her new book, “Life Gets Better.”

She says your 20s and 30s are filled with so many hard life tasks — choosing a career, choosing a mate, figuring out who you are, raising children, etc. But by the time you reach your 50s, Wendy says it’s so sweet to know the answers to these questions and to have learned what’s important about life.

Wendy says she’s learned that life doesn’t get easier, but it most certainly gets better.

She reveals two of the greatest gifts of aging and explains why she thinks the media is making a calculated effort to squash this news. She explains how this new way of thinking could impact consumerism is this country.