A conversation sprouted between me and a very good friend of mine on one regular sun-drenched Texas afternoon. The topic was “health and longevity”. My friend who is 30+ years older to me had so much personal knowledge and experience to append. I was little startled when he said that good health doesn’t guarantee longevity and ill health doesn’t assure fatality either. He believes there is no relationship between the two. I was little skeptic to hear that. Longevity is one of the most important reasons for staying healthy for majority of population isn’t it? The conversation got more remarkable with so many real life examples to support his credence on this subject matter. One of those examples that stuck in my mind is the example of his brother who was diagnosed with some fatal heart disease. The doctors’ told his brother would die in a week or so. His brother ended up living 20 more years from the day he was told he would die. Fluke I thought at that time. Not in disrespect to his ideology, but a severe lack of real life experience on my own part.
This conversation took place about seven years ago. Whenever I reminiscence about it, I couldn’t agree more on every word he uttered on that day. In these seven years I have heard of true stories of healthy people demise due to heart failure. My husband’s colleague’s nephew died at a young age of 21 years. He died of heart failure. Isn’t his age too young to die of heart problem I thought? Recently DH’s colleague died of heart failure. DH spoke to him Friday night and he died Saturday morning around 3 am. This was a huge shocker for us. A healthy person who had no cholesterol problems, no hyper tension, no diabetes, and no family history of heart disease died so suddenly (He never smoked or drank alcohol). Tim Russert who hosted “meet the press” collapsed on his work desk and died due to heart failure. Tim was fifty eight years young. In these seven years I came upon some many real life examples that I’m now convinced that being healthy has nothing to do with once death or longevity.
By saying so I’m not promoting any unhealthy habits here. Staying fit and being healthy is the best gift one can give themselves. If you ask me why is it so important to be healthy? The answer to it defers from individuals to individuals. For some being healthy saves money by visiting less often to doctors and paying less frequently for those expensive medications; for some it brings best work performance and more over business enterprises these days tend to recruit healthy and fit employees for their own healthy productivity; for some it bring more energy, emotionally stable and spiritually in touch with one self; for some it bring happy hormones, makes them happy and contented; for some it slows downs the aging process, keeping them look and feel young for a long period of time; for some it is a claim for independence, less dependence on other to do their daily chore. My personal reasons for staying healthy and fit are changing accordingly to the stages of my life. At this stage of my life, I literally live for my kids. Their routine gets hampered if I don’t keep well.
If longevity is your reason for staying healthy then you might want to rethink about it. Can any one guarantee longevity if you are a regular exerciser, healthy eater and disease-free person? I bet not. Who can predict death? Death may befall on anyone anytime does matter if you are healthy or unhealthy person, poor or rich, young or old.
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