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Nine years ago, I wrote my first blog article on this subject http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=338821

Now I am a few months away from the midpoint of my ninth decade of life.  It seems appropriate to say something more about what I learned of this final stage of life.

My doctor friend told me the three secrets of a long retired life: inherit the right genes from your parent, socialize with friends, and avoid stress of any kind. On the first point, both my wife and I have been lucky. As to friends, many of our contemporaries have passed on. But through our volunteer effort with community affairs, we made connections with many younger friends who have been most helpful to us and invigorating our minds. But the last advice has been difficult to achieve and we are still learning. Being optimizers at heart, both my wife and I believing in the boy scout motto of “being prepared” and often blame ourselves when things do not go right. But worrying about not being prepared creates stress and often of the unnecessary kind. Rationally we know that having adequate savings and financially independent and successful children should make our retired lives totally stress free. Yes, we basically have no worries and are enjoying living immensely. Yet partial evidences of this kind of unnecessary stress is the occurrence of anxiety dreams: such as dreams of forgetting your passport at an international airport, missing deadline of submitting an important proposal, et al. Furthermore, the need for rest after some physical activities, such as carrying heavy grocery bags from our car to the kitchen, frustrates do-it-yourself (DIY) enthusiasts like ourselves. And the “refugee mentality” often prevents us from realizing that “money” can buy services we can no longer do ourselves.

Finally, the thought of living alone by one of us eventually is a horrifying thought. In the Fifties, one elderly well known Chinese-American economist found that he had terminal cancer. He convinced his wife that they should commit suicide together and did so. At that time I thought “how unreasonable” of him even though his wife was willing. Now both my wife and I, even though we do not choose to, at last see this logic at our own advanced age. When one no longer has any worthwhile reason to stay alive, you should go out on your own terms as the 104 year old Australian did recently.

Note added 7/25/20198 To lift my spirits a good friend shared with me this site https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jEKY-3eNZc about "forever young"