Imagine a doctor tells you that you have only four more years to live. At best. There’s nothing major wrong with you, you’re feeling pretty good, but statistically there’s a very good chance you’ll be gone after four years.

Where do you go in your mind? For many seniors, even those of us in relatively good health, this is a possibility that rattles around like a loose screw in the back of our minds every day.

Of course, there are those who will decide simply to enjoy themselves by reading all those books they haven’t gotten to yet, or to finally take that trip to the Galapagos, or play as much golf as humanly possible. And why not? Our country tells us we are close to the end of the road. We’ve made our mark and done our time. Move over and let the next generation take their turn. May as well hang it up before it gets embarrassing.

But what if you had only that long to save the world’s strongest and most powerful democracy from a bitter, narcissistic bully, a bully champing at the bit to destroy it? And you were still the best person with the position, requisite skills, experience, relevant history and social capital to effectively fight back?

What if you were Joe Biden?

It’s one thing to step aside and hand over the reins to … who? Well, that’s a problem. Yes, there are Democrats with great potential, but at this critical time, anyone younger you can name is going to be untested in a national arena, unappealing to some crucial constituency and lacking at least some of the vital attributes just listed.

In my opinion, President Biden has no choice but to press on in a contest determined to push him aside – the stakes are simply too high for him not to. 

Biden has stated, honestly and with much candor, that he wouldn’t be running again if “the former guy” was not running. Unlike so many presidential candidates competing to be louder, faster, funnier and nastier, this is not ego speaking. This is the wise voice of a hard-won perspective that can only be gained through decades of experience and painful personal loss.

Biden’s may not be the most energetic and entertaining voice, but, right now, it is the voice we need. And we Americans need to put on our grown-up pants, stop whining, take a good look at all he has accomplished against the odds while facing down an evermore corrupt GOP, and actively support this man in his quest to save our democracy.

Here’s the thing about age that so many people in this country do not understand.

Yes, reduced time left can be an invitation to waddle slowly out to pasture, but it can also become an engine. It can focus a person on using everything they have to achieve a vital mission. The periphery falls away, focus is sharpened; renewed clarity brings its own energy, vision and thrust. 

Of course, possible jail time can also focus an elder on staying out of it. Even if he brings down our entire nation in the process.

I’m not worried about Joe Biden in a second presidential term. I worry about Americans wringing their hands over one man’s wrinkles when they should be focused on the other guy’s fangs.