AIBU to think your fate is sealed?

[Belvedeer]

I see so many articles about seemingly super healthy people who are diagnosed/have died from cancer but then I see people who live to a ripe old age that have been morbidly obese or heavy drinkers. Is life just a lottery?

I think so. My mum has terminal cancer and has always led a healthy lifestyle.

My dads in remission from cancer and at 70 is fitter than I am!

My 84 yr old neighbour believes that someone starts the clock and also stops it!

Interesting philosophy, she is Christian. 😊

To some extent your fate could be seen to be predestined by your genes. However lifestyle also plays a massive role and whilst some heavy smokers/ morbidly obese people live to a ripe old age, many more don’t.

The other issue to consider is mortality vs morbidity. Living to an old age with a huge raft of medical issues isn’t living well. In the U.K. life expectancy has increased but many elderly people are in very poor health. Of course treatments for conditions such as, say, heart disease have improved so living well and taking advantage of medicines such as statins May mean that a person with a genetic predisposition to heart disease may ‘cheat fate’.

Then again they may also get run over by a bus.

I think it's just that we don't like to admit to ourselves how much is outside of our control - we put all our focus on the bits we can!

It's a roll of the dice that you have some (but nowhere near complete) influence over. I still think it's worth making use of the influence we do have - eg. to exercise, eat healthily, but also to never take our time for granted, and try to squeeze what can be squeezed out of each moment.

Well to some extent I see what you mean. A lot of things are down to seemingly random things, or a complex interplay of genetics and external factors.
Also with any statistics you always have exceptions, but science does agree that certain things are more likely to shorten your life span.
This doesn’t mean everyone who smokes will die before everyone who does not smoke of course. But there are some things that we categorically know will increase/ decrease your risk of morbidity and mortality.

I think our fate is a bit like those pinball machines. There's a few different paths our lives can take, and we can do our best to send them in the right direction, but sometimes it gets all fucked up anyway

It's just a numbers game. If 1000 people smoke / drink heavily / are obese etc then they will, on average, die younger than 1000 healthy people. But you can't predict the fate of each individual person, so some of the healthy people will die young while some of the unhealthy people will live to a ripe old age. You can help the odds but you can also be unlucky.

I don't know what I think really. There are so many decision I've conciously made which have shaped my own life to this day and my future. My grandma barely drank (only on special occasions) never smoked in her life, never did drugs, was perfectly healthy and fit (weight wise, exercise wise, everything), loveliest lady you could ever meet and then all of a sudden got cancer and within 3 years died. My grandad a heavy smoker and drinker with lots of health problems has never really recovered from losing her and says he deserved to die instead of her. They had been together since they were 18 and got married on her 18th birthday as her stepfather abused her and my grandad wanted to protect her from him. Sometimes life is just unfair

I've watched a documentary on Levi Bellfield tonight. One poor woman, for whatever reason, missed her stop on the bus home. On the walk back from the next one she was murdered by Bellfield.

It unsettled me I admit. The 'what if' she'd gotten off at the right stop etc. Kind of reinforced the fragility of life I think.
Live each day the best you can I think.

'However, lifestyle still plays a massive role' (Matildathecat).

The whole premise of this thread is, surely, does it ?

Personally, I think the die is cast at the moment of your conception. You may add a couple of years to it; they won't necessarily be healthy or happy years, tho.

Many people who advocate and 'promote' 'a healthy lifestyle' live one because it's easy for them. They love 5am! They love their predawn 10km run. Vegan? Second nature. Etc.

Why do they love all that? Genetic disposition. Many will see it as virtue, of course. But loving a 5am run is genetic.

I think it is a mix of our genetic make-up with lifestyle choices. Some people may have a long line of healthy adults if they decide to binge on drugs then their lifestyle will kill them.
Similarly a really healthy person may have a long history of cancer or heart disease in theirs.
I don't think there are many obese smokers in their 90's.

So sorry to hear this, but glad that your dad is doing so well!

A mix of genes and lifestyle choices.

There’s always a weirdo on these threads. Today it’s me, as I also believe our spirit is recycled. You are born into a body, live your life, die, are reborn. You don’t usually remember past lives but sometimes you do. That explains some weird shit that occasionally happens.

Each time you are meant to learn life lessons that make you a better person. Your body tries to hold out as long as it can to support your learning. Sometimes it can’t due to genes/bad choices and you have to learn lessons in multiple lives.

I’m not sure what happens when you learn em all though!! Nirvana? Heaven? Is it even possible? Who knows.

There are lots of religions that believe this type of rebirth thing.

Aw that’s so sad. A client of my husband was in his 90’s, didn’t look a day over 60 and had never touched alcohol in his life. His wife was a bit younger and in poor health and was eventually taken into a nursing home. We got a call from one of their children and were expecting to hear that his wife had died but it was actually him, he had been visiting her and was knocked over on his way home and died at the scene.

I agree. We can try our best when it comes to lifestyle but it’s far from a guarantee that it will lead to a long, healthy life. So much is down to genetics and random good or bad luck. I do my best with diet and exercise but realise I’m not genetically blessed and it may not lead to a healthier outcome or longer life.

Elieza that's a pretty awful explanation of Hindu and Buddhus belief, which are not the same by the way. The theology of reincarnation and karma is much more complex than that and in no way relies in you remembering past experiences.
I think genes and in particular neuro pathology are increasingly important in our understanding of behaviour, eg previous generations had 'naughty or thick' kids now often similar kids are diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia etc. I think there are many ways in which your life is determined by external factors but not by any conscious or cosmic force which deliberately puts us in a direction.

I have to say that I’m a believer that the end is the end. I think religion came about as a way of creating order in uncivilised times, i.e. this book/scroll/text is a list of all the rules, if you break them bad things will happen, if you don’t you’ll be rewarded in the afterlife. Although I am interested in the unexplained and it would be nice to think that death wasn’t the end

I saw a documentary once on a pair of identical twin brothers. One moved to New Zealand and lived a healthy active lifestyle, the other stayed in uk smoked, drink ate badly etc. They both had serious heart attacks within days of each other. Admittedly this is a exceptional case, but I do think it is largely down to the hand you’re dealt. You can postpone it with a good lifestyle and a bad lifestyle can trigger certain illnesses, liver disease for example but some people are just more likely to suffer illness than others.

@HugeAckmansWife I never mentioned the name of any specific religion and did not attribute my beliefs to any religion. You’re the one who is doing that!

Let's assume for a moment everyone is created equal (they're not, but imagine they were). If there is a natural risk of 5% of someone getting the disease, if everyone were identical and lived identical lifestyles, one person in twenty would get it regardless of the fact that they had done nothing better or worse than anyone else.

Imagine now eating processed meat means a 20% increase in risk. That means that a person who eats lots of sausages now has a risk of 6% (20% of 5% is 1%). Not materially different to the "healthy" people, just 6/100 will get the disease instead of the 5/100 healthy people. So 94/100 burger-ists will be fine, and 5/100 vegetarians will not be.

Everyone is not created equal of course. Wealth, diet, exercise, ethnicity, genes, all things that change the level of risk. Life is lethal to all of us in the end.

Or I could get run over by a bus when I go to the shop.
Or my house could be broken into tonight and I could be murdered.
Or I might die during my c section in a few weeks.

I don’t worry.
And because of all the variables, I’m not going to live a borning to me life of kale and yoga over a more fun to me life of beer and pizza.

In 100 years I’ll be dust and forgotten what ever I do.