The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man

If all the trappings were stripped away, leaving only my true self, who would I be? Am I living fully as that self in every moment? And when it ends, will my story have meaning?”

We ask, we learn, we take counsel, we emulate, but when we finally act, it’s our action.

Facing a problem, Charlie didn’t wait for a perfect solution. He took the next step forward that he could see.

Charlie went on. “I always say: This will pass.” Whatever the challenge, “you’ve got to work through it, and hold the line, and don’t fall apart. Stick in there. There’s no future in negativism.”

There is no living without making mistakes. As Epictetus, that marvelous Stoic, said, “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

Live, learn, and move on.

A person gives meaning to the expression by living it. With our daubers up—whatever it means exactly—we’re ready for opportunity. We’re poised to learn and grow through change. We’re alert and alive, determined, unbeaten.

Bran asks his father, “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” His father replies, “That is the only time a man can be brave.”

Charlie understood that we don’t live in the world’s future; we live in our own present moment, inside the much smaller zone of our own actions and our own will. We can’t control tomorrow: that’s realism. But optimism teaches that we can watch for tomorrow, seek to understand it, and leap when the moment arrives to grasp it—perhaps even to shape it