Ego integrity versus despair is the crisis that faces people after they reach their sixties. The person who has not solved this crisis is often preoccupied with self, fearful of death, and convinced that life has no meaning. Persons who have met this crisis recognize the value of their chosen lifestyles and take responsibility for what they have done, or not done, with their lives. They have ego integrity, which leads them to wisdom.

Wisdom, the happy combination of knowledge and experience, includes the awareness that life is transitory and death a certainty. So the person of integrity continually searches for the meaning to be found in later years. Long-range achievement is no longer a high priority. Short-range achievable goals take precedence. Long vacations become less important than daily pleasures. With decline in bodily strength, the wise older person is able to utilize available psychological strengths to transcend some physical frailties. A sense of impermanence pervades life. Paradoxically, there is also a sense of permanence, with the awareness that the world will endure whether or not they are there to observe it.

In the process of developing ego integrity, wise elders still pursue liberty and happiness. They often discover a new spiritual dimension to life. They have accepted their parents and stopped blaming them. They’ve stopped blaming themselves for being who they are. With a sense of freedom, they may review developmental crises that were not resolved earlier and change what they can change while they have time. With new wisdom comes a more detached view of life. In the final years the challenge is to meet death with faith, dignity, and a new kind of freedom.

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