live long, live well, die old.
I am going to die. Fact. Not today, hopefully not anytime soon, but barring some amazing scientific advancement, there will be an end point. It’s a shame, but that’s the deal. The question then becomes how to live what time I have, and then how to die. We talk a lot about a vision for living, which is great. So I wanted to share my vision for dying.
I want to be 97 years old hiking with my wife in the Swiss Alps and then suddenly collapse from a massive coronary. Nice, right? No hospitals, long-term care, hospices, nasty smells or the other humiliations of age. In order to fulfill my vision I have to stay vital and healthy.
This is really the the crux of why I do what I do. All that work and effort is because I expect to live a long time, and I want that time to be healthy and filled with agency. To make that happen I need to do all this stuff we talk about in AGEIST. I am not alone. I know from all the email we get that there are thousands of you doing exactly the same thing with pretty much the same motivation: live long, live well, die old.