The Upside of Aging: How Long Life Is Changing the World of Health, Work, Innovation, Policy and Purpose

Foreword

The economic benefits far outweigh the challenges that come with an aging society. The extension of life, and the extension of healthy life, are positive developments to be celebrated, not feared. Their impact will be an economic boon, not a drag.

What does it mean to be old? We each have our own definition, but we probably agree that the chronological ages that used to define “elderly” are increasingly irrelevant. I’ve had many friends and colleagues who did their most important work in their eighties and nineties. Unfortunately, I’ve also lost far too many family members and dear friends to disease before they had a chance to experience full lives.

When my father was diagnosed and treated for melanoma in the mid-1970s, the doctors thought they had caught the cancer before it spread. A few years later, however, the disease recurred, and by the time it was discovered, the prognosis was terminal. I took Dad to cancer centers around the country and consulted with leading physicians and researchers before it became frustratingly clear that medical science didn’t have a solution. So I moved my family from the East Coast back to California to give my kids and their grandfather a chance to know each other. Dad passed away 10 months later.

In 1993, I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and given 12 to 18 months to live. It was devastating to think that the family continuity I sought after my father’s diagnosis now seemed impossible. There probably would be no chance ...