Positivity. This one attribute can predict one’s ability to bounce back from life’s inevitable stresses. Taking time to learn skills to self-generate positive emotions will help us become healthier, more resilient, and more connected to others and the world around us. Attitudes are more important than facts. Strong mind/body connection. Possessing greater optimism can lower the risk of developing chronic diseases. Pessimism increases inflammation in the body. Activates a “fight or flight” response in our system, which over time can wear our bodies down. 40% of happiness is under our control. Chapter details eight strategies to help foster positive emotions. Research shows having faith and a strong spiritual life can amplify our longevity and happiness. How we respond to aging is more than circumstances. It is a choice we can make in our minds.

Fleeing the Hungarian Revolution. Becoming refugees in multiple countries.. Never give up and have a better attitude. The best way to work through your suffering? Helping others. Having compassion for the well-being of others will make you happy. I realized that if I shifted my focus and concern to another person, my own pain lessened. Fastest way to finding a happy brain is to start with love and compassion with others. It was drilled into us: respect for others. That was our culture; how we were raised. We took care of our parents and grandparents awsthey got older. Facing the Pandemic. If we all do what we’re supposed to do, keep our faith and have courage, and recognize the need we have for one another, then we’ll be fine.

At 106, Eleanor’s quote: “You are never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream.” Importance of making new friends as one ages. Many of our older friends will die. My children’s and grandchildren’s friends are also mine, through them. Your own joy increases when you make someone else happy. A highly concerning study reveals that one out of ten people report they have no close friendships at all. Everybody has something they like and can do! Volunteer! When you just think “poor me”, joy runs away from you. You have to think about making someone else happy. Bringing joy to others, focusing on others, is the surest way to know joy yourself. “Every morning when I wake up I say, ‘thank you.’ Thank you, God, for another day. Another good day.”

Today the average lifespan in the US approaches 80 years old. However, the average health span—the number of healthy years we live—is much shorter. In the US it is 63 years old. This means we are living much longer than we are healthy. Disparity in health span is substantial in the US. The most privileged have a health span that approaches their lifespan. We must ensure that everyone has the opportunity to match their health span to their lifespan. Offering realistic guide posts on what to expect with normal aging. Crucial to put aging well at the center of policy internationally to harness the power of older people and move forward globally.

We present finite difference schemes for hyperbolic problems. We begin with the transport equation and show the necessity of a certain type of upwinding and/or numerical diffusion for stability. This is illustrated by analyzing all the classical schemes: upwind, downwind, centered, Lax–Friedrichs, Lax–Wendroff. Beam–Warming, and Crank–Nicolson. We then focus on the topic of positivity and max-norm dissipativity of finite difference schemes. We present and sketch the proof of Godunov’s theorem. A brief discussion of dispersion relations is then carried out. Next, we study schemes for the wave equation, and show how to properly choose the discrete initial velocity to attain the desired consistency. To show stability we employ energy and negative norm arguments. The last section is dedicated to developing schemes for symmetric hyperbolic systems. The most well-known finite difference schemes are presented, and their matrix valued symbols are introduced. The symbol is then used to develop the von Neumann stability analysis for this case.

The next step after getting a feel for what “personal goals” are and how they work is to understand the other two components of motivational patterns (emotions and personal agency beliefs) and how goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs operate as a “leadership team” in motivational headquarters. Learning how these components of human motivational patterns (always) work together to direct, organize, and regulate thought and action provides the conceptual foundation for constructing a theory of motivation and optimal functioning that can inform efforts to help people be more successful and experience enhanced levels of well-being and life meaning. This chapter also introduces the concept of equipoise – a system-wide requirement for optimal functioning – while also explaining how MST concepts can be applied to motivation at the level of human collectives (Group Motivational Systems Theory).

Traditional perspectives on the study of aging and cognition have focused on what has been characterized as “cold cognition.” However, recent theoretical and empirical advances have emphasized the need to examine age differences in the factors that energize and direct cognitive activity (i.e., “hot cognition”). In the present chapter, the roles of goals and motivation are considered in terms of both explaining age differences in performance and characterizing adaptive functioning in later life. As an illustration of goal influences, three different perspectives associated with normative changes in goals across adulthood – social cognitive goals, socioemotional goals, and goal priorities – are discussed, along with their impact on cognition. The impact of aging on motivational processes associated with energizing, directing, and sustaining actions directed toward achieving goals is then considered, using selective engagement as an organizational framework.