Have fun in the present, but make choices that will leave you choices later in life. You may not care much now whether or not you live until 70 or 90. But what if, at 68, you find a new passion, or a new friend, or a soulmate?

Smoking and drinking excessively are not choices that leave you options when you're older. If you manage to escape their effects, that is luck, not choice. Be a friend to the person you will one day become.

As for the diseases that we have little to no control over? Unfortunately, there's not much we can do yet. But there are people who are devoting their lives to finding solutions. So, if you know them, offer them support. Because they may make it possible for you to get those options back.

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She is in relatively good health (barring joint point and very serious arthritis from aging), but her daughters (my mom and aunties) have not fared as well. None of them have smoked, or drank, or heck, even took Advil regularly, and all have developed some form of breast case or lymphoma, though all were luckily mild cases that were treatable. My mom has MS, though, for which there is no cure.

It is more than genetics, more than lifestyle. I've recently read about the concept of off-gassing: that all the products we use that are pre-treated give off noxious fumes, hence "new car smell". Think of all the lotions and make-up and hair care and dry cleaning we've used; all those chemicals most cause some accrued effect, not to mention environmental hazards like tainted water and pollution. I'm becoming a serious green fiend.

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