Geriatrician Cristina Alonso believes the right goal in old age is not counting years toward a century but delaying frailty and holding on to autonomy for as long as possible. As a specialist in healthy aging, she keeps returning to one distinction: getting older is guaranteed, while losing strength or independence is not. In her view, extra years lose much of their worth if they are spent unable to manage daily life on your own. Her argument pushes old-age medicine to judge success by function rather than by lifespan. That shift in focus grows more pressing as populations live longer and the quality of the added years becomes the real question. Put simply, her advice is to prepare for the years ahead rather than assume decline is automatic.