Health Care

In the United States today, there is an absolute obsession regarding health care – who has and does not have health insurance, what dietary and exercise regimens one must follow in order to stay healthy, what pills a person of a particular age should be taking on a daily basis (especially prescription ones advertised on television), and so on, ad infinitem.

Despite sweeping improvements in medical technology, and in a time when most people in developed countries are living longer life spans than the majority of humans in history, people are still becoming more and more fearful that they aren’t taking enough of the proper medications to prolong their lives as much as possible. Instead of enjoying the process of living, people are spending their time worrying about dying.

Perhaps a new health care paradigm is in order. Rather than submitting to yearly cardiac stress tests, full-body scans and the like, what if people instead tried to forget about their age, and just tried to enjoy life and make a contribution at the same time? What if they decided to embrace their peccadilloes and realize that without them, perhaps their lives might have been less interesting, and that if their overall life spans do indeed wind up being shorter than they otherwise may have been, then it’s just a tradeoff that they decided to make along the way, and to accept it. After all, we all have to die sooner or later anyway. Is how much time one spends on the earth really the most important factor in having had a good life?

And haven’t we all known someone who seemed to stay youthful, no matter how many years he or she lived? Such people don’t necessarily stay away from doctors and the modern health care process, but they do always seem to exhibit an optimistic outlook and an inner verve that the aging process somehow fails to extinguish. No matter what health challenges such people have to face, they seem to survive them without showing enmity toward others, or bitterness regarding their tribulations.

People in developed countries today are supposedly exposed to potentially harmful chemicals in their food that were never there for their ancestors. But somehow, on average, we’re still outliving those ancestors.

Even so, the average North American is barraged with television commercials saying that you should “ask your doctor” about a particular prescription medication, even though the commercial may not really indicate what that medication is designed to treat. Pharmaceutical companies seem to be urging people to beg doctors to put them on their medications, whether they need them or not. And just as some doctors give in to drug addicts’ requests for pain killers, perhaps some would also give in in this case, rather than be pestered by their patients.

But while some human beings are now living well over 100 years, those people are still the exception. And how many of us really want to spend so much time in old age? Why not vow to thoroughly taste life and instead of going to your grave in a little-used, well-preserved body, just have the best ride you possible can, even if its duration isn’t so long?

And despite the best efforts of the American pharmaceutical industry, places such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jordan, Macau and a slew of European countries all boast higher life expectancies than the U.S. average (accessed on December 14, 2006 at https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html)

Even in Medieval times, there were those who lived long lives, despite a complete lack of any of the medical advances we enjoy today. But is the length of one’s life really the deciding factor in how valuable that life has been?

People who’ve made great contributions have rarely been noted for their caution. Taking chances is part of life, and obsessing about how long you may be around can only draw your energies from what could be much more worthwhile pursuits. The founders of the United States willingly risked not only their fortunes, but also their lives for a cause they felt to be great. No one remembers them for how long they were around, but rather for what they did with the time they had.

Like the animals around us, perhaps we humans should concentrate more on just living as part of nature, rather than always trying to cheat death and live as long as possible.

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