He who would pass the declining years of his life with honor and comfort, should when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.

The two halves of a life keep failing to imagine each other. Young people plan as though age will never arrive, and old people forget how little they once understood, and both errors cost something: one produces an unprepared old age and the other a harsh one. The remedy runs in both directions and is simply holding the other stage in mind. Continuity with yourself across time is a practice rather than a given.

Do one thing this month for the version of you that is twenty years older, however small. And when somebody much younger acts foolishly, recall your own equivalent and answer that memory.