Aging is ridiculously unfair, but ignoring it doesn't stop it from happening. The Reaper keeps track of the beads whether or not you do. People get old. Their bodies and minds slowly break down. At some point they have to stop working, stop driving, stop doing lots of things they love doing.

This accounting of days sounds depressing at first, but I can speak from experience: you soon go back to your normal level of happiness, but with a more accurate view of reality. I think a similar thing happens with terminally ill patients, although the time scale is shorter.

The terminal illness analogy maps pretty well to aging. So much so that I encourage people to donate to anti-aging research such as the Methuselah Foundation (https://www.mfoundation.org/?pn=mj_donate) or SENS (http://www.sens.org/donate). I just donated $50 the latter.