I'll be 47 in June. I have a different viewpoint on age than seemingly most people, who seem to associate age with weakness, senility, depends, and bad driving. Not discounting those things, I tend rather look at a high age as something impressive and respectable. It means that person has been around longer and has seen much more. It means they's survived and beaten the odds longer than the rest of us. I can remember The Beatles coming to America, The first walk on the moon, and the advent of color TV. I remember the Kennedy assasination and the race riots in DC during the mid sixties. Yeah, I know. Big whoop. But my parents both remember the Great Depression, and my father still has his Purple Heart from a combat wound in France during WWII. I've seen drastic changes in sociology, technology, and geography just during my lifetime, but how much more my parents?
The bottom line? There's only one alternative to old age, and that's an early death.