While the aging population is well documented and understood, as is the fact that avoiding premature death is important in being able to age well, the concept of aging well is a more elusive idea. In general, the idea of successful aging in health terms means compression of the period of morbidity experienced by an individual (Fries et al. J Aging Res, 2011). Comments in the literature noting that there is not yet a consensus definition of aging well reflects the very individual and subjective nature of expectations, adaptation, and satisfaction with life that relate to this.A systematic analysis by Kim et al. of “successful aging” includes domains such as avoiding disease and disability, having high cognitive, mental, and physical function, being actively engaged in life, and being psychologically well adapted in later life (Kim and Park, Res Aging 39(5):657–677, 2017). Similarly, in the model of “Aging well” by Fernandez-Ballesteros et al., successful aging is defined by the domains of health and activities of daily living (ADL), physical and cognitive functioning, social participation and engagement, and also positive affect and control (Fernández-Ballesteros et al. J Am Geriatr Soc 56(5):950–952, 2008).For every individual a life worth living on their terms may be very different, as eloquently expressed by Sir Theodore Fox, an Editor of the Lancet for many years.“Not least do people differ in their attitude to life. Some cling to it as a miser to his money, and to as little purpose. Others wear it lightly—ready to risk it for a cause, a hope, a song, the wind on their face. When so many people think of it as a means, the doctor, surely, would be wrong to insist that it is always the first of ends. Life is not really the most important thing in life.” (Fox Lancet 286(7417):801–805, 1965)