In Cicero's On Old Age, the elderly Cato starts describing the pleasures of farming and gets carried away. He talks about seeds, vines, grafting and manure for several pages before catching himself. "You must pardon me," he says, "for farming is a very favourite hobby of mine, and old age is naturally rather garrulous" (On Old Age ch. 16, Evelyn Shuckburgh's translation).

It's a charming moment, and a revealing one. The pleasures Cato lingers over aren't grand. They're ordinary things he has come to value.

Research suggests Cato wasn't unusual. In a series of studies, older adults tended to report more happiness from everyday experiences than younger adults did. Special occasions still brought pleasure across ages. Familiar moments could bring just as much (Journal of Consumer Research, 2014).

Here are eight that philosophers, old and new, suggest are worth making time for after 60.

1. A morning with nowhere to be

Montaigne, writing near the end of his life, noticed that people talk about "passing the time" as if time were something to get rid of. He had his own approach. "I have a special vocabulary of my own," he wrote. "I 'pass away time,' when it is ill and uneasy, but when 'tis good I do not pass it away: 'I taste it over again and adhere to it'" (Essays 3.13, "Of Experience", Charles Cotton's translation).

For many people, the first years without a full-time job bring a strange feeling: an ordinary weekday morning with no meeting to get to. Some rush to fill it. Others learn to enjoy it.

A second cup of coffee on the porch, the paper read slowly, a few minutes watching the street wake up. Montaigne's advice was simple: when the time is good, don't pass it. Taste it.

2. Tending something that grows

Cato's long speech on farming begins with a strong claim: "I come now to the pleasures of the farmer, in which I take amazing delight. These are not hindered by any extent of old age" (On Old Age ch. 15). He describes watching vines climb and curl, "as though they were hands," and says he can "never have too much of this pleasure."

Few people today have vineyards. But the same pleasure is available on a smaller scale: a vegetable bed, a few herbs on the windowsill, a tomato plant on a balcony.

Part of the appeal is that growing things can't be rushed. You water, you wait and you notice small changes from one day to the next. That kind of patient attention is part of the pleasure.

3. Sitting in the sun

Cato thought the countryside suited older people especially well. "For where else can it better warm itself," he asked of old age, "either by basking in the sun or by sitting by the fire, or at the proper time cool itself more wholesomely by the help of shade or water?" (On Old Age ch. 16).

The philosopher Diogenes would have agreed. According to Diogenes Laertius, he was "sunning himself" when Alexander the Great came to stand over him and offered him any favor he wanted. Diogenes replied: "Stand out of my light" (Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 6.38, R. D. Hicks's translation).

A warm bench, a sunny window seat, a few minutes outside on a cool morning: it costs nothing and asks nothing of you. Diogenes, at least, thought it was worth more than anything a king could offer.

4. A walk that leaves room for wonder

A short walk can be more than exercise. Researchers asked 60 healthy older adults to take a 15-minute outdoor walk each week for eight weeks. They analyzed data from 52 participants. One group was simply asked to walk. The other was encouraged to look for things that gave them a sense of awe, such as a tall tree, a wide view or the detail in a fallen leaf.

Compared with the other group, the "awe walk" participants reported more joy during their walks. They also reported greater increases in positive, outward-looking emotions in daily life and greater decreases in daily distress (Emotion, 2022). It was a small study, and their overall anxiety, depression and life satisfaction didn't change. But it suggests that how you walk may matter as well as how far.

Next time you're out, try looking up, or noticing one thing you've never paid attention to before.

5. A plain meal you enjoy

The Tao Te Ching describes an ideal community whose people "think their (coarse) food sweet; their (plain) clothes beautiful; their (poor) dwellings places of rest; and their common (simple) ways sources of enjoyment" (Tao Te Ching 80, James Legge's translation; the parentheses are his).

The point isn't poverty. It's being satisfied with what's in front of you rather than always reaching for something fancier.

Many people find that simple food becomes more satisfying with age: soup on a cold evening, fresh bread, a ripe peach eaten over the sink. Cooking a favorite dish slowly, without needing to impress anyone, can be one of the quiet pleasures of a free afternoon.

6. Reading alone in the evening

In the 1330s, the Japanese monk Yoshida Kenkō wrote that few things compared with a book at night. To sit alone "in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations," he wrote, is "a pleasure beyond compare" (Essays in Idleness 13, G. B. Sansom's translation).

Reading in later life can be different from reading for school or work. There's no test and no deadline. You can reread a favorite novel, finally start the classic you always meant to read or put down a book that isn't holding your attention.

Kenkō's phrase "men of unseen generations" captures something else, too. A good book is a kind of company, even on a quiet night at home.

7. A game played just for fun

At the end of his praise of country life, Cato makes a gently funny concession. Let the young keep their horses, spears and sports, he says. "To us old men let them, out of the many forms of sport, leave dice and counters; but even that as they choose, since old age can be quite happy without them" (On Old Age ch. 16).

Cato was a famously serious man, and part of the joke is that he doesn't think old age needs games at all. He makes room for them anyway.

A crossword can sit half-finished on the table all afternoon. That's part of the fun. You can come back to it whenever you feel like it. The same goes for a jigsaw puzzle spread across the dining table or a weekly card game. None of it needs to be productive.

8. An unhurried conversation with an old friend

Kenkō was particular about company. He didn't want a friend who agreed with everything, since "one might as well be alone." Better, he wrote, "the company of one who, while he will listen with respect to your views, will disagree a little, and argue" (Essays in Idleness 12).

That kind of company gets richer with time. An old friend can ask how your sister is doing without needing the whole story again. And they can still disagree with you about something you've been arguing over for twenty years.

If there's someone whose conversation you've missed, it may be worth reaching out first. A friend who knows you well and still argues with you a little is one of life's better pleasures at any age.

Small pleasures don't fix everything

Cato was a wealthy landowner, and Montaigne had a château. Not everyone reaches 60 with time, money, good health or a garden. Caregiving, financial pressure, illness and loneliness can make even small pleasures hard to reach, and noticing a sunny window doesn't solve any of them.

Still, many of the pleasures on this list cost little or nothing. They tend to need attention more than money.

One place to start

Pick one pleasure from this list and give it your full attention once this week. Leave the phone in another room, slow down and notice what you enjoy about it.

As Montaigne put it, when the time is good, don't just pass it. Taste it over again.