Ups and Downs of Aging Beyond Seventy Years

Life grows ever more complex as each choice is shadowed by the loss of future time. Hope, a positive attitude, becomes mellowed in accepting the nearing of the end. Two psychological periods emerge: the first is described as the Summing-Up Period and the second as the Encore Phase in life. The Summing-Up Period of life brings a driving force to attain a congruence of forces within oneself, complete unfinished personal tasks and fulfill unsatisfied experiences, and compassion, a wish to give others, now encountering once-familiar problems, with compassion and understanding. The Encore stage of life may be more physically passive, but it is a time of sayonara, of saying goodbye with gratitude and forgiveness for all; of serene-ness, an acceptance of all life has given, even as sorrows increase, and of soliloquys, a review of life. All are diffused with gratitude and solace for others.