I work every day, and I find the work exhilarating. I know that I am fortunate in this. For others, I believe that enforced retirement of the physically and mentally able is gratuitous cruelty. We have no stronger way to mark our commitment to a great cause than to die for it. So long as there is any such thing as death, human beings can be great . . .
Nobody can take away one's possibility to die for a cause.
So long as that measure of ultimate commitment is attainable, the world will be a live place to live in. I have studied older people. Acceptance may sound like defeat, like giving up, but nothing could be further from the truth. Acceptance does mean a turn away from the goals and projects of mid-life, but it also means a turn toward an alternative way of being. In his book, Learning to Grow Old , Paul Tournier distinguishes between acceptance and resignation.