A life worth living is one in which the person is still growing, still a learner, still with potential and whose life continues to have within it promise for, and connection to, the future.

A life worth living is one still in pursuit of happiness, joy, and pleasure, and in which one’s birthright to these remains intact.

Moreover a life worth living defines an elder who deserves respect and honor and whose work it is to synthesize wisdom from long life experience and to formulate this into a legacy for future generations.

We can’t take the pain out of the fact that humans aren’t immortal or indefinitely disease-proof, or that illnesses accumulate as we age. We can however, wholly abolish the idea that after a fixed age we become different, impaired or non-people.

We are in unchartered waters when it comes to “successful aging”. Some would compare it to the beginning of time when the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the earth. Our task is to fully explore the long-life cycle, stretching it, taming it, bringing it under control, and making it yield its riches in spite of disabilities that may arise. It is a life worth living.