A Long Bright Future: An Action Plan for a Lifetime of Happiness, Health, and Financial Security »

LAURA L. CARSTENSEN, Ph.D., is one of the world's leading authorities on longevity and aging.  A professor of psychology at Stanford University and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, she has won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her research has been supported for more than twenty years by the National Institute on Aging.  Dr. Carstensen lives in Los Altos Hills, California.

From one of the world's leading authorities on longevity and aging comes the first book to address a uniquely twenty-first century question: What are we going to do with those twenty or thirty years we didn’t expect?

Due to unfounded fears of unhappiness and regret, many intelligent, otherwise rational people, even into their forties and fifties, are so convinced that old age is a time of misery that they simply deny any other outcome and refuse to plan their own destiny. In A Long Bright Future, Laura L. Carstensen seeks to shed the myths and misconceptions about aging that stop individuals from adequately preparing for healthy, fulfilling, and financially stable long lives.

We’re living in a time when five generations of a family may all be alive at the same time. Everything will change: education, work, financial markets. And we—as individuals and as a nation—need to be prepared. In a reassuring and respectful tone, this optimistic and highly informative guide to smart aging will show readers the steps they need to take to ensure that long life becomes synonymous with good life.

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

1 Five Myths About Aging You Can't Afford to Believe 13

2 What is Aging? 43

3 Reenvisioning Long Life 65

4 The Social Side of Aging 97

5 Collective Supports: Social Security and Medicare 137

6 Investing in Our Future: The Case for Science and Technology 175

7 What Might Go Wrong? 219

8 Ensuring a Long Bright Future 253

Endnotes 285

Index 307