“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

That’s the question, originally posed by poet Mary Oliver, that Isabel Allende wants you to answer for yourself. At 71, Allende says she wants to live with passion. With determination. With purpose.

In this TED talk, Allende says that while we all feel younger than our real age (she feels 17), growing older allows us to grow wiser, and happier and healthier.

Allende is a novelist (The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna, Maya’s Notebook) and memoirist. In My Invented Country, she shares the story of being exiled from Chile to the United States, something that she says inspired her writing. And in Paula, Allende tells that story and more to her daughter (and to us).

Through The Isabel Allende Foundation, she is also proving that it’s possible to Move Forward. Give Back.™ The foundation works with nonprofits to empower and protect women and girls.

And Allende has one more question for you to answer. She closes her speech with this:

Retirement in Spanish is jubilación. Jubilation. Celebration. We have paid our dues. We have contributed to society. Now it’s our time, and it’s a great time. Unless you are ill or very poor, you have choices. I have chosen to stay passionate, engaged with an open heart. I am working on it every day. Want to join me?