The Inevitable

[miniboes]

This morning I received the news that one of the janitors of my school passed away last night, he had a heart attack. I was not very close to him, although I remember having some good conversations with him. I am quite dazed by his sudden death (he was roughly 55). Apart from the philosophical questions that a death brings up, it made me worried that something similar might happen to someone closer to me, my father in particular. The janitor was about my father's age, and I do not doubt he died because of an unhealthy lifestyle; he was very overweight. If he had exercised more, and eaten healthier, I really don't think this would have happened.

However, when I talk to people they compare his death to getting hit by a car, dying in a plane crash, etc. It seems like people think a heart attack is as inevitable and unpredictable as a traffic accident; you can't do much to prevent it, and you never know when your life will end. It has something tragic; a society of people who have access to all the information they could possibly need to eliminate their largest peril, however fail to realize they can do anything at all. Every day countless lives are ended by largely preventable diseases.

I wish I could do something to make people realize that many of the terrible diseases that cripple our society are not in fact inevitable. I just wanted to share that thought, thank you for reading.

[brimstoneSalad]

A lot of people consider their diets and lifestyles to be written in stone and unchangeable, even though they are obviously easily changeable. It's a means of dealing with their cognitive dissonance: that's just how it is, can't teach an old dog new tricks, etc.

[Corelich]

Sadly most people don't have the willpower to change.
They are tired of their jobs and life, don't sleep enough, have emotional stress. This are factors which make us very unwilling to understand reason which goes against the own worldview. To add to this, many people are raised rather with a dogmatic worldview and never learn to challange their own worldview. This goes for christians aswell as people with a very unhealty lifestlye. Luckily, while its hard to get sceptical about yourself, its not impossible and it happens sometimes to people you would never except.