Things like aging, happiness , wealth are relative notions. “I’m leaving MedFit and going upstairs to the regular gym,” my mother told me recently on Facetime, “because there are too many old, very disabled people where I work out, and they take too long at the machines.” My mother just turned 90. A friend broke in on a conversation several of us were having about new adventures. “Striving? You know at this point in my life, I have no more aspirations. I’ll be perfectly happy if I could just do more of what I like: reading and writing the occasional poem.” This friend is 64. I am driving up-country in Rwanda with a local friend, to deliver his extended family potatoes, rice, and money to pay for their single electric bulb. He’s a project manager for a Swedish telecom firm, rents a modern four-room house on a severe slope reached by a heavily riveted road. “I am lucky to have means, because I can share more,” he confided. He provides tuitions for seven young family members, in addition to his two kids.