Before retirement age the internal glow of happiness can be independent of external circumstances. Despite the gloom and doom during the great 2007-09 economic recession, a Time Magazine survey found that 90% of Americans considered themselves optimistic about their health, finances and relationships. In one of my favorite stage dramas, according to conventional wisdom, forty-two-year old Shirley Valentine was happy. She is healthy, her...

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Humans’ lifespan keeps getting longer. At the dawn of the last millennia, 1000 years ago, life expectancy was less than 20 years. By the time my parents were born in the early 1900s, it had risen to 50 years. My life expectancy, born in 1933, was 60 years. Today’s babies can anticipate living more than 78 years. Life expectancy now is more than half again what it was a century ago and almost quadrupled that of a millennium ago. The change in...

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(A grief survival guide) Everything in life is temporary and certain to change. Babies grow and gradually become adults that mature, get old, and eventually die. I love you, you’re perfect, now change, Off-Broadway’s second longest running musical is about the challenges everyone faces while going about the seemingly ordinary business of living their lives and coping as best they can with change. Life’s challenges come in infinite varieties....

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We inherited our DNA and basic human needs from hunter-gatherer ancestors who traveled and cooperated eons ago in search of food and safety. Our basic needs of sleep, food, movement and procreation are the same as theirs. But of course our living circumstances and the challenges we face in successfully aging are very different. Successful aging for them meant helping each other survive and maintain their community as long as they lived. We live...

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People are living longer than ever. Many are living happy, healthy and contented lives. But minds and bodies progressively change over time. Some changes are part of normal aging. Others are warning signs of potentially serious health problems that, without treatment, can hinder happiness, produce suffering and bring earlier death than necessary. It’s important to know the difference between normal changes and danger signals. With normal aging...

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Obamacare is the ugly bastard offspring of an unloving Congress, conceived amid a vicious cycle of domination and one-upmanship. Obamacare’s gestation was hampered by Republican’s repeated attempts to abort it, without first denying that health care reform was needed or presenting an alternative for it. Since its chaotic birth, they’ve repeatedly tried smothering and starving it. If Obamacare survives, it will be a godsend. Millions who are...

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