Fast-forward twenty-five years. My own father, a businessman, was strongly encouraged to retire when he was sixty-two, to make way for someone younger. Like his father before him, he felt pushed out and began to question his self-worth. His social world shrank, he began to suffer physical ailments, and he became depressed. But by then, in 1995, the tide was already turning. Society and employers were awakening to the Eastern idea that the elderly may be not only of some value, but of superior value. My father put out feelers and was offered a job teaching a course at the USC Marshall School of
...more
