Ah youth. The time when you throw caution to the winds because you know you will always come out on top. Nobody can convince us differently.
Our twenties and early thirties are the times we feel invincible and are filled with idealism, energy and hope. The future is way out there. Now is what’s happening. Four or five hours of sleep is all we need to get back down to partying, studying, working and attending a few classes here and there.
And then the forties strike and we need eight hours of sleep a night to get through the day without noticeable sagging around mid-afternoon. If we have children in our homes, their boundless energy alone is enough to sap ours. Even in our thirties if our kids are rambunctious enough, we can feel the sag of maturity closing in. Suddenly our twenties look really, really good.
Twenty something’s generally pay no attention to the effect their choices may have on them later in life. They drink and smoke and pull all-nighters as if they will be 22 years old forever. Many have a cavalier attitude toward longevity saying they prefer to die young and healthy to old and infirm. This attitude disappears if the cavalier person lives to be fifty or so.
No matter what a twenty-something thinks, the truth is no one is invincible at any age. What we put into our bodies every living day does have consequences down the road. Some who are twenty years old now given a 30 year habit of smoking two packs a day will find these consequences in lung cancer. The heavy drinkers will find theirs in liver, pancreas or esophageal cancer.
Not good is that the bad habits we start early on in life are tough to break and we are apt to take up our bad habits before the age of reason. It’s a trite saying but true: habits are easy to make, hard to break.
On a lighter note, even if our youthful bad habits lead us to cancer as adults, the diagnosis of cancer is no longer a 100% fatal one. Scientists all over the globe have dedicated years of their lives to finding better treatments and even a cure for cancer. For the patient today diagnosed with cancer, there are more and more ways of fighting the dreadful disease giving them a second chance. Certainly doctors and scientists can offer no guarantees as there remains a lot about the disease of cancer that is unknown, but there are better treatments and much better prognosis for cancer patients than ever before.
Profound advancements have been made in medicine allowing many to beat cancer, which does not mean that we can cease taking care of our bodies. Medical breakthroughs are not a license to binge drink and smoke Marlboros to our hearts content. As adults, the responsibly is even heavier to encourage the younger generation to make wise decisions as they are clueless as to where those choices will lead them down the road.
So next time you are speaking with a group of teenagers in your life, make an attempt to pass on your wisdom gained from experience. I predict that at least one out of a hundred will listen to you and that one will forget what you said immediately. But speak up anyway, what the heck.
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