Book excerpt: Our anxiety around sickness, old age, and death can be a ''wholesome fear'' - a fear with a positive quality that ultimately enriches and nourishes our lives. Lama Zopa Rinpoche shows us how we can use our anxiety as a high-octane fuel to really live what's most important, and Kathleen McDonald presents meditations that integrate these teachings and lead to peace, compassion, and joy for ourselves and others. Doing so will help us to live well and, when the time comes as it inevitably will, to die well too. It's never too early to start making this most important of efforts - and, fortunately, it is never too late