[al:新概念英语（四）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:How to Grow Old] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.46]Lesson 11 [00:03.20]How to grow old [00:12.84]What, according to the author, is the best way to overcome the fear of death as you get older? [00:22.43]Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. [00:27.13]In the young there is a justification for this feeling. [00:31.12]Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle [00:35.30]may justifiably feel bitter in the thought [00:38.27]that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. [00:43.15]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, [00:52.21]the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. [00:57.46]The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me -- [01:01.79]is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, [01:06.93]until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, [01:11.94]and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. [01:17.73]An individual human existence should be like a river -- [01:21.99]small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, [01:26.38]and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. [01:32.29]Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, [01:39.27]and in the end, without any visiblebreak, they become merged in the sea, [01:45.44]and painlessly lose their individual being. [01:49.70]The man who, in old age can see his life in this way, [01:54.58]will not suffer from the fear of death, [01:57.68]since the things he cares for will continue. [02:01.73]And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, [02:06.66]the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. [02:10.85]I should wish to die while still at work, [02:13.91]knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, [02:18.35]and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.