Whether you are approaching age 50, 60, 80 or beyond, growing older requires us to deal with loss in one form or another. Many people face the prospect of living on less money as they grow older, their body parts have more limitations (and some have simply worn out), and you are likely to experience lowered ambition, waning libido, increased health issues, diminished opportunities, and for some the loss of people close to them.
The flip side is that we are now strong in places we were once weak. We’re better able to take things in stride without getting knocked off balance so easily. We have perspective that allows us to better separate out what is important from what isn’t. We know ourselves better, and we’re more in charge of our emotions, our words and our actions than we’ve ever been before. Many people have developed more of their internal attributes, such as generosity, patience, kindness, decency, honesty and faithfulness. Author David Brooks calls these the eulogy virtues—the ones talked about at your funeral—rather than the resume skills many of us have spent much of our lives developing and promoting.