My mother at 85 was quick, with good vision and sharp reaction for her age, but one day she knocked into three parked cars on a supermarket parking lot. We never found out exactly how it happened, but the investigators figured Mom hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

Mom was lucky, even though she spent two weeks in the hospital. But we unwillingly concluded that it was time to take away Mom’s car keys. Tears ran down her cheeks. I think she never felt old until that moment, when I took away the independence provided by the car.

In the days that followed, we suggested she take taxis to shop, but she wouldn’t do it. Fortunately, she lived in the city and quickly slipped into the habit of taking the bus. She began to enjoy her new life. But most old people have no convenient public transportation or shops within walking distance.

We seemed to have made a right decision. But is tragedy like that a reason to take away the car keys of the elderly? I think not. Age doesn’t necessarily prove anything. Slower reactions or not, senior citizens are much better than teenagers. They usually drive more slowly. They get honked at a lot, but their slower speed reduces the risk of death and destruction. The worst risk-takers on the highway are young men between the ages of 18 to 25, but no one suggests taking away their keys or raising the driving age to 26.

The death rate in the past year for motorists between 16 and 20, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was more than double that for drivers over 70. The older citizen who tries to avoid danger is likely to take personal responsibility more seriously than a younger person who causes danger through partying and risk.

So, let Granny drive. Road age is a lot less dangerous than road rage.

On May 1, 1926, Ford Motor Company became one of the first American companies to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week. It was something workers and labor unions had been calling for. However, the five-day workweek was to increase productivity. With more time and money, workers were expected to buy and use the products they were making. Manufacturers soon followed Ford’s lead, and the Monday-to-Friday workweek became standard practice.

Since then, everything has changed but the hours. Many people worked longer, which severely influenced health and well-being, as well as the environment. Until the Second World War, it was common for one person in a family, usually the oldest male, to work full-time. Women gradually made up 42 percent of the world’s full-time workforce. Later, technology made lots of work unnecessary, with computers and robots doing many tasks previously performed by humans.

Well into the 21st century, we continue to work the same long hours as 20th century laborers, using up more of Earth’s supply to produce more goods that we must keep working to buy, use and replace in a seemingly endless cycle of hard work and consumption. It’s time to pause and consider better ways to live like shifting from fossil-fueled lifestyles with which our consumer-based workweeks are connected.

The UK New Economics Foundation argues that a standard 21-hour workweek would address a number of interconnected problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life. Economic systems that require constant growth on a finite (有限的) planet make no sense. It’s time for a change in our economic thinking.

Years ago it was popular to speak of a generation gap, a disagreement between young people and their elders. Parents said that children did not show them proper respect and obedience (服从), while children complained that their parents did not understand them at all. What had gone wrong? Why had the generation gap suddenly appeared? Actually the generation gap has been around for a long time. Many people argue that a gap is built into the fabric (结构) of our society.

One important cause of the generation gap is the chance that young people have to choose their own ways of life. In more traditional societies, when children grow up, they are expected to live in the same area as their parents, to marry people that their parents know and agree to, and to continue the family occupation. In our society, young people often travel great distances for their education, move out of the family home at an early age, marry or live with people whom their parents have never met, and choose occupations different from those of their parents.

In our easily changing society, parents often expect their children to do better than they did：to find better jobs, to make more money, and to do all the things that they were unable to do. Often, however, the strong wish that parents have for their children is another cause of the disagreement between them. Often, they discover that they have very little in common with each other.

Finally, the speed at which changes take place in our society is another cause of the gap between the generations. In a traditional culture, elderly people are valued for their wisdom, but in our society the knowledge of a lifetime may become out of date overnight. The young and the old seem to live in two very different worlds, separated by different skills and abilities. No doubt, the generation gap will continue to be a feature for some time to come. Its causes are rooted in the freedom and changes of our society, and in the rapid speed at which society changes.