overestimating what we like and underestimating what we don't
actions cause consequences
I heard from two dear friends on different continents within forty hours who delivered devasting health news this week. One was a story I knew, the other was one I partially knew. They were both expensive, painful updates on dear friends of many decades’ standing. I am still somewhat in shock.
None of us lives forever, regardless of what our genes indicate, what we consume through out diets, what we don’t consume through our diets, what we do on an athletic field, and what immunizations we receive. To paraphrase a meme we see online once in a while, none of us gets out of this alive. That is the iron-clad rule that is comparable to a principle of physics. We all have a shelf life. Period.
The question is whether we can help or hurt ourselves in extending that shelf life?
Indications are that we do have some control over our lives. Walking in front of a car on Michigan Avenue at 0200 probably is a bad move. Draining two entire bottles of Kahlua nightly on our own over seventeen years is definitely not a smart move. Sitting in our chairs in front of the television eating caramel-covered donuts and chugging sugar-laden drinks for 20 hours a day, without exercise, any vitamins, or sleep is probably not a great path, either.
On the other hand, we do have these gene things passed on from generation to generation. Some determine our eye colour, others the shortness of our left legs, and still others whether we are likely to have a predisposition for breast cancer. We can improve our chances of getting some of these diseases, if I read the health pages correctly, and we can ameliorate our chances of not getting those same problems.
The problem seems to be that we overestimate the parts of the story we like while we underestimate the parts we don’t want to address.
But none of this is entirely inside or outside of our control. The human condition is an unbelieveably complex one, even more so than the U.S. political system—the most complex one in the world.
We do have control over some of our options. Driving a car after overconsuming alcohol or simply shooting drugs are pretty bloody dangerous moves. Of course some folks will beat the odds but far from all, particularly in an age of people speeding at 90 miles per hour in automobiles or injecting fentanyl-laced drugs. Not good moves, to reiterate.
We also can eat a completely raw food diet but succumb to horrible diseases such as non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma because of some other variable in our lifestyle, even one unknown. Some of us can ingest caloric-dense food laden with fried grease yet live to be 100, only to die of influenza we get by standing in a queue at the grocery story. But, are these outliers or the norm?
We have some strong indications that eating lots of vegetables to diversify our gnome, getting at least half an hour of exercise daily, consistently recharging our bodies with a 7-8 hour nightly sleep pattern, and keeping our booze consumption to a relative minimum (sorry) provides us better chances. But, we are guaranteed nothing.
Life is complex as are our health conditions. The point is we need work on each of our own conditions rather than simply relying on someone else’s actions. We probably are not well-served by doing only those things we like, while ignoring the ones we find onorous. Our actions create consequences for us. We won’t always enjoy the effects of what we do but we can sustain relatively healthy actions without spoiling everyone else’s life. It’s a choice, however, rather than a mandate.
It’s a choice and there is responsibility involved. If we completely ignore all of the basic recommendations our health care community offers, we can look back as we see the end on the horizon to ask why we ignored what we could do. We might well then have regrets.
Take care of yourself. Get out to savour the beautiful sunlight tomorrow, if it’s availaable. It doesn’t have to be all day but for a little while. If it’s not beautifully sunny, then look at a walk along the garden to see where the shadow cases its shadow. If it’s snowing to the point of being a Minnesota-like environment, then spend a few minutes contemplating that it’s a mere 9 weeks until spring formally arrives (yes!!). Think about coming back to see the summer beauty.
None of my friends I heard about this week are throwing in the towel, though I know they are worn down. Defiance is always is an action with consequences . The question is how much do we want to be responsible for ourselves? Often it is not as much as we would like to assume. I simply suggest we think about the over- and underestimating to recognise we have some power in this equation of life. As you can tell, I believe actions have lots of consequences. FIN