This TED Talk features author and activist Ashton Applewhite, recorded live at TED 2017.

What's one thing that every person in this room is going to become older?

And most of us are scared, stiff at the prospect.

How does that word make you feel?

I used to feel the same way. What was I most

worried about? Ending up drooling in some grim institutional hallway. And then I learned that only

4% of older Americans are living in nursing homes, and the percentage is dropping. What else was I worried

about? Dementia. Turns out that most of us can think just fine to the end.

Dementia rates are dropping too.

The real epidemic is anxiety over memory loss.

I also figured that old people were depressed

because they were old and they were going to die soon. It turns out that the longer people live, the less they fear dying,

and that people are happiest at the beginnings and the ends of their lives.

It's called the U-Curve of Happiness,

and it's been borne out by dozens of studies around the world.

You don't have to be a Buddhist or a billionaire.

The curve is a function of the way aging itself affects the brain.

So I started feeling a lot better about getting older,

and I started obsessing about why so few people know these things.

The reason is ageism, discrimination and stereotyping on the basis of age.

We experience it any time someone assumes we're too old for something,

instead of finding out who we are and what we're capable of, or too young.

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