They say that there are only two things that we cannot change- how we are born and how we die. Everything else we are said to have control over although few exercise that power or feel they truly have it.
Victims abound, helplessness is fortified even encouraged and many feel someone far bigger than themselves is playing them like a giant pawn on a chess set.
How long we will live, how we will live, the challenges we may face and general uncertainty is central to all that is both fascinating and troubling about life.
Scientists now have a test that will reveal-with a 77% accuracy-who has the genetic tool box to live to be 100. If you knew you would live to be 100 would you behave differently? Would you smoke, drink and eat box after box of bon bons? Would you take your time with your goals? Would you worry about retirement differently knowing that you would have more years of it?
More interesting to me is what we would each do if we found out we did not have a longevity genome, that we did not have the promised current life expectancy of 80-85 years.
What would you do if you had only 5 healthy years left?
Would you tell everyone you love that you love them? And then when you have said it over and over would you dream up a million fanciful ways to show them? What would you work at- are you lucky enough that no lottery or death sentence would move you from the work you currently do and love? Would you speak your mind, wear purple, put in a pool, rise every day at 5 to meditate, have sex like a rabbit, eat,dress and travel exotic, call your high school sweetheart, say sorry to your mom, pay your brother back, laugh hard, tell off colour jokes, run a marathon, become a vegetarian, become a carnivore, climb a tree, climb a mountain, stop social climbing, drink wine, never whine, buy those gorgeous shoes, walk frequently in anothers’ shoes, share your favourite things and give some away, grow a beard, love your body, embrace your imperfections, ride a camel, smoke a camel, learn a language, make up a language, use rough language, whisper, shout, spend,save,gift,hug?
would you make every minute count?
what are you waiting for?
Wow, tough one to comment on. I’m not sure what I would do. Would I change anything? I definitely wouldn’t work. I’d spend every second with my family and friends. I don’t have many regrets so far so I wouldn’t have to spend time on that.
For a longer term bucket list, I do have a list of places to travel to: India, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Thailand (again), Cambodia (again), Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Chile (again), Argentina (again), Singapore (again, to see Diana & family), all of Europe (some of it again)…OMG where does it end?
I do think that our lifestyle choices affect our longevity to a degree. A large enough degree to make it worth the effort of avoiding all the crap (to state the non obvious ones: processed foods, sugar, processed foods (oops, said that already), over use of prescription drugs, general toxicity of living on our polluted planet…) It all helps, I think. So, I guess I don’t thing genetics determine everything and we should live each day to it’s fullest, most of the time (it’s hard to do).