Having said that, we’re not infallible. And in the last couple of weeks, I’ve talked to two friends who made decisions that led to heartache.

A large study in America showed that when older people do make mistakes, they’re less likely to acknowledge them than when they were younger.

I can’t help wondering if this is because, as we age, we can be defensive about getting things wrong for fear of seeming less capable and on top of things than we used to be.

However, we need to remember, we’ve made errors throughout life but probably didn’t feel so anxious about them when we were younger because we hadn’t got to the stage of worrying about cognitive impairment.

So, let’s try not to feel bad when we make mistakes, and face up to them. After all, if we don’t accept that we’ve made a poor choice, we can’t put things right, can we?

The two people I mentioned have now acknowledged they made errors, which is good, but that hasn’t stopped them feeling stupid that they made them.

The first of these friends fell for one of those scams from a man she had met online.........

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