Courage, Laches responds, “is a certain endurance of the soul. - Atul Gawande

At least two kinds of courage are required in aging and sickness. The first is the courage to confront the reality of mortality- the courage to seek out the truth of what is to be feared and what is to be hoped. But even more daunting is the second kind of courage - the courage to act on the truth we find.

Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don’t want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can’t, someone who understands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end.

Studies find that as people grow older they interact with fewer people and concentrate more on spending time with family and established friends. They focus on being rather than doing and on the present more than the future.