How to grow old

Some old people are oppressed by the feeling of death. In the young there is a justification for the feeling. Young man who have reason to fear that they will be killed in th battle may justifiably feel bitter in thought that they have been cheated by the best thing that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it—as at least it seems to me—is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of ego recede, and your life gradually emerged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river-small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, rushing passionately past boulders and over waterwalls. Gradually they become wider, the banks recede, the water flow more quietly , and in the end , without any visible break, they become emerged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares of will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increase, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.