Too Young to Die, Too Old to Worry
THIS weekend, the singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen is celebrating his 80th birthday with a cigarette. Last year he announced that he would resume smoking when he turned 80. Its the right age to recommence, he explained.
At any age, taking up smoking is not sensible. Both the smoker and those who breathe his secondhand smoke can suffer not only long-term but acute health problems, including infections and asthma. And yet, Mr. Cohens plan presents a provocative question: When should we set aside a life lived for the future and, instead, embrace the pleasures of the present?
At the start of the 20th century, only one-half of 1 percent of the United States population was over the age of 80. Industrialized nations were preoccupied with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and polio. Many of the common diseases of aging, such as osteoporosis, were not even thought of as diseases.
Today, 3.6 percent of the population is over 80, and life is heavily prescribed not only with the behaviors we should avoid, but the medications we ought to take. More than half of adults age 65 and older are taking five or more prescription medications, over-the-counter medications or dietary supplements, many of them designed not to treat acute suffering, but instead, to reduce the chances of future suffering. Stroke, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney failure, hip fracture the list is long, and with the United States Department of Health and Human Services plan to prevent Alzheimers disease by 2025, it grows ever more ambitious.
Aging in the 21st century is all about risk and its reduction. Insurers reward customers for regular attendance at a gym or punish them if they smoke. Physicians are warned by pharmaceutical companies that even after they have prescribed drugs to reduce their patients risk of heart disease, a residual risk remains more drugs are often prescribed. One fitness product tagline captures the zeitgeist: Your health account is your wealth account! Long live living long!
But when is it time to stop saving and spend some of our principal?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/opinion/sunday/too-young-to-die-too-old-to-worry.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)My dad's 83, quite fit. I hope he doesn't re-commence his former 5-cigar-a-day habit, it made being indoors with him an awful thing.
littlemissmartypants
(22,722 posts)I hope he doesn't either and all the best to you.
~ littlemissmartypants
valerief
(53,235 posts)marym625
(17,997 posts)At whatever point someone believes it's right for them. .
Nice post
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)and he never used glasses. He drank straight from the bottle.
All kidding aside, my father is 85 and he has never smoked and was into playing sports. He played basketball and baseball. He quit playing both sports when he was about 40 and started playing softball with the company team until he retired at 65. He walked for exercise but arthritis set into his knees at age 72. Now he just builds things in his garage, all wooden things like cat houses, bird feeders, dog houses, pictures frames and other stuff just to keep busy. BTW, he gives everything he builds away, and they're well made and sturdy and they last for several years.
I love my father very much, he's always been a good dad to me and my brother and sisters.
Warpy
(111,319 posts)and lowered the load due to poverty, realized I could do OK without them. The ones I'm still on are plenty ugly so I'm not keen to take any more.
If I knew how I cured my hypertension, I'd tell you. But I don't.
DesertFlower
(11,649 posts)he would start smoking again. unfortunately 2-1/2 years ago he died of a brain tumor at age 64.
even though he had stopped smoking many years earlier he always missed it.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)That's the question. If you want to spend it all before your relatives can get their hands on it, you have to plan ahead, plan it right.
jcboon
(296 posts)He's earned it.