I want to avoid the ‘aging mistakes’ my parents made. I’ve got work to do.

Wow, time flies. Nearly 20 years ago, soon after my 50th birthday, I started making a list of what I considered mistakes my parents (and many of their generation) had made as they aged — and that I swore I would not repeat. Some of the items were silly (“I won’t color my hair anymore”), but most of them had substance (“I won’t limit myself to friends my own age” and “I won’t worry about what I can’t control”), and a few took the needs of family into account (“I won’t keep driving when I become a threat to others” and “I won’t deny the fact that I need hearing aids”).