[al:新概念英语（四）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（美音）] [ti:How to Grow Old] [by:更多学习内容，请到yingyu.chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:00.40]Lesson 11 [00:02.44]How to grow old [00:10.60]What, according to the author, is the best way to overcome the fear of death as you get older? [00:20.22]Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. [00:25.14]In the young there is a justification for this feeling. [00:28.83]Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle [00:33.24]may justifiably feel bitter in the thought [00:36.79]that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. [00:42.45]But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, [00:48.12]and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, [00:52.01]the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. [00:56.93]The best way to overcome it--so at least it seems to me-- [01:02.67]is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, [01:08.05]until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, [01:13.22]and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. [01:17.73]An individual human existence should be like a river-- [01:23.51]small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, [01:28.42]and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. [01:33.70]Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, [01:41.18]and in the end, without any visiblebreak, they become merged in the sea, [01:47.44]and painlessly lose their individual being. [01:51.19]The man who, in old age can see his life in this way, [01:56.77]will not suffer from the fear of death, [01:59.54]since the things he cares for will continue. [02:03.38]And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, [02:10.52]the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. [02:14.29]I should wish to die while still at work, [02:17.82]knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, [02:22.36]and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.