Continuing to learn and play a constructive role in life as one ages is not always guaranteed. While one’s history and experience enrich them, discriminatory prejudices persist, and resources and achievements are challenged by vulnerability and finitude. How do diminished endurance, the need for rest, or even physical limitations coexist with the deliberate decision to remain active in a world one claims as still their own? What does the desire to remain combative, caring for others (not all elderly people are consumerist, polluting boomers who disregard the consequences of their actions on the state of the planet where various generations coexist), and the reality of not always being able to fulfill these commitments entail? Based on the testimonies of elderly men and women who were particularly exceptional in their political, moral and cultural commitment, we aim to reflect on commitment as a developmental experience and to discern some underlying issues and psychological processes at play. Because the balance is delicate: what allows one to remain mentally alive amidst confronting untranquility, necessity of self-care, interest in others, desire to learn, to find pleasure in the pursuit of life, work of renunciation? All this, without being deluded by performative aging, nor abandoning everything for lack of finding meaning in what one undertakes.