Over the las almost two years, I have been testing a few different medications to manage my chronic stomach issues. However, none of them have worked as well as what I was on previously. The reason I was changed off it in the first place, was that the doctor wasn't happy with the inflammation results, even though there were no outward symptoms affecting my daily life. For me though, going back (and there is now less chance it will work again) is about quality of life, not longevity of life.
It is not a popular opinion.
But I think I came to terms with it long before I had any treatment that worked at all, as I never expected to live into old age. That sounds pretty morbid, but the quality of my daily life was already not great, me condition was constant and extreme and the typical result is cancer. At that time, there was no effective treatment that helped, so I just managed it alone, living the best I could. With some new treatments, things improved massively, but my attitude has stayed the same, quality over quantity.
Quality of life doesn't mean "enjoyment" of experience, in my opinion. It is not that joy shouldn't form part of life, but I believe it shouldn't play a leading role. Or at least, not in how people seem to evaluate enjoyment today. Enjoyment from my perspective can be uncomfortable, difficult, painful, stressful, scary and a thousand other oft-judged negative feelings. But enjoyment has to offer reward.
That reward can come in multiple forms, but I suspect that the people who judge themselves having the most rewarding life, aren't necessarily those who feel happy all the time or make the most money. I reckon it is more likely the people who believe that what they do matters, that they have meaning of action and likely something that serves a cause greater than their on desire. And it could also be that they fail a lot.
In the modern world today, I think that we have been convinced that quality of life is tied to what we have and positive feelings, without connecting it to what we actually do in our daily life. as a result, we chase short gains in positive feeling without tethering it to what we do for long-term results. Obviously an extreme of this is the dopamine addiction to irrelevant content streams where we can distract ourselves and feel good, without doing anything at all. And this decoupling of our feelings from what we do, means that we have broken the relationship that provides value to our world. The average person today needn't do anything to add value, in order to get the feeling that they would have got from actually adding value.
as I discussed with someone the other day and have many times here, most of what we do in this world is meaningless busywork that under better conditions, wouldn't need to be done. Most would consider the work of doctors and nurses as valuable, which it is, but they are mostly treating preventable lifestyle diseases. If we focused on treating the cause of the disease rather than the outcome, we would eradicate a lot of the illness. But, to lower lifestyle-caused diseases, we would need to change our lifestyle.
Our lifestyles are largely not conducive to a healthy outcome for multiple reasons. One of these are that we have aligned our behaviours to profit models, enriching corporations that are bleeding us dry of money and opportunity. Another is that we ourselves keep choosing to favour how we feel in the moment, over what outcomes we want and how we will feel about our situation in the future. And while we live daily and momentarily as this is how we experience life, we also have to understand that life itself is a continuous series of indivisible moments, so how we feel in the next moment, or a million moments from now, still matters.
Therefore, I think quality of life has to be tied to the future of our life also, but it shouldn't be necessarily tied to longevity. It would be great to live a long, healthy life, but is it valuable to live a long, unhealthy life? There is no perfect health, but I think we should also consider what the value of our life is to ourselves, the world and what impacts it has on others - especially those we care about.
For example, if I were to ask my daughter if she would rather have me live for the next ten years healthy with her, or twenty years largely trapped at home and ill, she would probably choose the twenty years. Because she can weigh up her feelings today and will evaluate a longer time as better. But, she has no insight into what quality of life that would be for her or the impacts it would have on her tomorrow or in five years from now. If however I was healthy and living a full and enjoyable life with her for ten years and then got hit by a bus, it would feel like I was taken too soon, but it would be more acceptable and in her eyes, she would have a completely different experience of our time together.
Quality, or quantity?
Being chronically ill however doesn't necessarily stop a person from having a fulfilling life, but it definitely puts a dampener on it in some respects. In others though, it might be that those who experience or have experienced chronic illness are able to derive more enjoyment from life experiences because they have reference points of much worse. Perhaps illness can create a perspective that increases appreciation and gratitude when good things take place, like feeling the warmth of the sun after a long, cold winter.
Whatever someone believes, I believe that we should all question our beliefs and motivations for behaviours. It is very easy to fall into defaulted thinking and action that will dictate our daily lives, providing that momentary feedback that we are getting something, adding something, or experiencing something, when all we are actually doing is passing the time.
Being present isn't passing time, it is experiencing as fully as possible and as no moment is perfect, it means that there is always going to be a degree of discomfort, fear, pain, illness or something else that "ruins" the moment. But the thing is, moments can't be ruined unless we add ruinous meaning to that moment, and this applies to all moments. The best and worst experiences of our lives are just moments and while we might desire more positive than negative, we don't get to choose what we experience. We do get to choose how we behave after an experience though and those actions are what is going to not only define the next moment, but all moments to come.
Our perceived experience of our own life is largely up to us, yet we keep putting the power of dictation in the hands of the external world, other people, the feeds we scroll. The results we get means that we keep retracting away from life experience and into cocoons of safety, where we can feel that we have meaning, even though we are not actually doing anything meaningful at all.
The friend I was talking to the other day is approaching middle age and is now questioning the meaning of his current life and how most of what he does, is actually meaningless. Yet, he can't break away from it because everyone else is the same and society runs on a model of meaningless activity for meaningless reward, rather than meaningful activity for meaningful reward. If we all behaved with meaning and incentivised by meaning for positive growth, we would all have a far higher quality of life experience, with far less lifestyle problems of all kinds caused.
It is quite possible that the medication works as it did earlier, but my life will be shorter. Perhaps in that future I will regret my decision not to have surgery to remove my intestines and it will all be too late. By then, it will be a counterfactual situation though, because while I can't go back, the complications from the surgery might have been so dramatic that I would have regretted having it. We can never know what the future holds, unless we make decisions now that take options off the table completely.
Every moment we have both the chance to open the future, and close it off. What we open it up to and what we shut out, is going to depend on the decisions we make and what we do right now.
Taraz
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Hmm, health they say is wealth. Our health is so important in this world that if it fails then it would seem as if our world crumble before us. Most of what happen to us health wise is mostly cause by our action, what we eat, drink and the kind of job we do and also the hereditary nature of ailment many of us get from our parents. Overall, life is meaningless, it is just a rat race filled with repeated action. Also, our society value profit and gain then the quality of life of the people. If you particularly come to our own country here, you would see different fate drugs and even farm produce all in the name of making huge profits at the detriment of people’s health.
We have a lot of role to play to have a good quality of life and it is everyone responsibility and this will start when we stop prioritising wealth over good lifestyle.
Our lifestyle is also a determining factors, you will hear some people saying, I have just a life to live so I’m going to enjoy it to the fullest even if it will cost them their health in the end.
It happens everywhere,. Business runs the world, and business doesn't care about people. I think as much as possible, we need to distance our activities from consuming from business and spend more time interacting with other humans.
It is all about finding a balance. I go on dopamine binges and flip through my Instagram feed for hours while sitting next to my partner as we share the different videos we find funny or insightful. It has become our slightly ridiculous way of communicating eith each other, through our reactions to social media content. Yikes!
But to balance things in my mind, are thr contributions I make to 100s of lives daily, by pouring into them time, and care, and love, and MATH! Problem solving. Thinking for themselves. More than they would get from any textbook. Boy it has been nice to finally take a break from the world cup, and summer festivals, and finally moving to a new place a few blocks away.
It has been months since my last Taraz article. It has been nice to slow down on a Monday morning and reflect on your thoughtful words again. It is up to us to find meaning, and today, it meant slowing down and enjoying Hive again for what it is.
Kind of scary, isn't it?
This is a big thing to do also and very rewarding. But, what happens if your personal live is too shallow or never has that relationship depth - does it affect the teaching?
Good to hear and glad to see you here :)
I guess my relationships could affect the teaching, but everyone brings some kind of baggage into the profession. I talk about how much fun our neighborhood is in Brooklyn and stress the importance of being able to solve problems to make better choices. I'll consider it a win if even half my kids are better problem solvers because of me.
It is weird for sure. It has occupied the space where atand up comedy used to be in my life. I used to watch stand up specials with my ex wives and then we'd chat about whatever topics they brought up in their sets. Now each little TikTok or Instagram story is like its own bit, ready for discussion and looking for a reaction. It is definitely a bit of a change, but I can get with the times!
I had a different problem about 4 years ago when my husband suddenly passed away from a heart attack. It was a shock! Instantly, I had a stomach problem caused by so much stress, and within 10 days after his death, I lost 10 kilos. I had depression, especially because: "What do I do now, now that I am alone?"
My neurologist/psychiatrist gave me meds to calm down my nerves and helped me, but then the side effects were also enormous because they gave me cognitive issues, so I stopped the meds and went on with life. Nowadays, I'm doing meditation and joining a social community in Vienna that offers cultural/Sports/food meet-ups, etc. Stress is a critical factor in a person's well-being. I am 70 years old, live alone with a simple lifestyle, no drama...and life is much quieter nowadays.
Sorry to hear about your husband.
Vienna is gorgeous first of all. Soon it is gluhwein season :)
Now, just imagine if everyone through life did similar and before difficult times. If community and health were the focus of us all, and for business. A different world and far less issues.
I am happy to hear that life continues on for you. My wife might be in that situation (and nearly was a few years ago) and I would want her to move on fast.
Oh yes, soon it is the cold season, and Glühwein is good for the nerves, lol! Oh by the way, I have been taking natural supplement by mixing:
1 tsp of turmeric powder,
a dash of black ground pepper (to bind the turmeric powder)
2 tsps of apple cider vinegar
2 tsps lemon juice
2 tsps olive oil
1 tsp of honey
I mix them and drink it in the morning on an empty stomach 3x a week. It helps a bit with gut inflammation. Maybe you ought to try it.
Thank you for your thoughts; I appreciate it. I hope your wife will move on fast, and that you´ll recover from those stomach issues. Best regards!
My wife and I recently had our trust set up and a lot of this stuff has been front and center for us since then. I think it's a natural thing when you have to think about things like advance directives and things like that. It has certainly made me try to enjoy each moment I have here a little bit more.
I haven't done any of that yet, which I should. I think it will bring some more clarity on the meaning of life.
It's one of those things where you know you need to, but you keep putting it off. It's nice knowing we have it done now even though it wasn't cheap.
This right here! This is the crux of my challenge right now. Finding meaning of action again. Had it at one time. But since retiring and health challenges, it is hard to find again. Still looking for something I can feasibly support and serve with current challenges.
And it is a challenge to find something for sure. I am struggling with it. What I am trying to do though is find supporting things (like exercise) to improve, as it will come in handy when I find something meaningful :)
Same.
But I hope you get well soon. It's hard to be ill today. My niece also has a cancer, an acute myeloid leukemia.. and her family is already struggling financially because of it. 😓 But they do everything just so their daughter lives.
The role of a parent. If it is the parent that is ill though, I might do everything so that my daughter has a better life - even if I am not in it.
This is such a thoughtful perspective. You’re right that health isn’t just about living longer, but about the quality and impact of our lives. Small choices today really do shape how we feel in the future. 🙏
And considering that we are often pretty shallow, we should look after ourselves as best we can.
Right!
This resonates a lot, especially the point about "reward" as something separate from enjoyment. I think you're right that a lot of us have been trained to chase the feeling of a good life rather than the actions that actually build one. Your daughter's example really landed well too, it's a good illustration of how the people living the outcome always have more insight than the people just watching it from outside.
And generally, the actions aren't enjoyed by most people. Willpower only stretches so far and when there are distractions on offer, it usually fails.
I think that some decisions might permanently close doors in our life. To balance enjoying the present and protecting our future is probably one of the hardest parts of life.
Doors are closing all the time, but I don't think we put enough effort into what doors we will want open in the future. We act too randomly for what feels good now.
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I was exposed to the thought of quality of life before quantity very early, when my mom got very sick and it became clear that she would have to take opioids for the rest of her life to manage the pain. She signed up at a Swiss hospice that would help her go out peacefully whenever she feels like the world has become too clouded to enjoy. Luckily, that hasn't happened yet, and she has found a combination of treatments of all kind to manage the pain.
Back then I thought a lot about that. And came to the conclusion that I preferred quality over quantity.
Hola, coincido perfectamente con usted pues valoro más la calidad que la cantidad, y como doctora le puedo decir que la medicina del futuro es la preventiva donde se trabaja en base a modificar estilos de vida para evitar las enfermedades, pero desgraciadamente hay otras que no se pueden evitar como las genéticas y aquellos propias asociadas al envejecimiento
My wife has been dealing with a couple chronic illnesses, it definitely puts a damper on her ability to live life to the fullest.
It was the reason she had to abandon her executive career and start her own business, it also affects her now even more as she was really into food and she is no longer able to eat many foods she used to enjoy even a couple years ago. It actually sucks the most for her but also affects those around her as our travel is becoming more and more limited.
Chronic illness sucks...
This is profound. Prayers for your improvement. !BBH