Ask Lemmy

In Italy, our most famous Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, in his book recounting his days in Auschwitz tells of a man who would spend all his cigarettes on the black market to get some soap and shower every day.

Asked about why, he tells that you not taking care of yourself and your body is what Nazis want to achieve: to turn you in the animal they can exploit to the last drops of blood and sweat.

Taking care of yourself is the first Resistance against Fascism and all those who are against unconditional respect for Humanity.

Take care, Brother.

What's worse than living in a dystopia? Living in a dystopia with a major medical issue.

Tell me you’re young and reasonably healthy without telling me yadda yadda

There comes an age where health is not a matter of choice. You do it or you suffer whatever years you stay alive, which can be surprisingly long. If you’re healthy for your age, don’t squander it, you will regret it as early as your 50s, if not a bit sooner.

You’ve heard 30-somethings joke about bad knees and back pain? That’s nothing, chump. You’ll know it when even sleeping hurts.

Spoken like a very young person. The problem is not as much the dying as what comes before it. Most people don't just drop dead. For most unhealthy people, it is years and years of suffering from various ailments as soon as you get to a certain age.

You don't have hobbies you'd like to be healthy or sane to keep enjoying?

For one I would drop social media time... That's where the toxicity gathers.

No. I don't care about living long, but do care about feeling good, and figure I have a body and might as well take care of it. Not obsessive by a long shot but eat well, exercise, sleep. All that feels good.

The thing is, when you live in an unhealthy manner, you won't just live with minor symptoms of it, before your body just has enough and dies immediately. You will have to face the long time consequences for decades. If you decide to do so at the age of 17 or 20, and find a romantic partner later, you might see things differently by the time you notice how your health degraded.

I'm obviously not trying to get you to live healthy - you do you. But in my experience, not caring about your future self will just make it even harder when it becomes your present self - and on top of that global recession, famine, wars, diseases and whatnot now you will also have to deal with an achy foot, constant coughing or crippling depression. For a long time.

As someone who is handicapped through no fault of my own, it fills me with sorrow that you feel this way. Self-harm through neglect is no way to live.

My handicap initially left me with no way to walk for nearly 2 years. No doctor would touch my case. My kid literally could not hug me. I was dependent on so many people during that time and could barely take care of anyone else.

I cannot tell you what to do.. but I'm probably not going to live very long anyway (thank you, genetics!), so I'd like to encourage you to find purpose. I found my purpose in creation by sewing, and it brings me overwhelming joy. My goal is to continue creating things to spread that joy to others.

If that doesn't convince you, please know this: there are evil, shitty people in power out there who revel in your self-destruction and actively want you to destroy yourself. Please do not let them win. Continue to do your best in order to spite them and help people who aren't so fortunate.

I can’t disagree that things are shit, but that’s not a reason to treat yourself like shit. Even if you don’t have a long life, going to the grave with tense af shoulders isn’t comfortable either. If you’re able, stretching and walking in the sunshine will at least add some comfort. Nothing is good but that’s no excuse to be an accelerationist to destroy your body.

Becoming healthy is tough and can suck. But being healthy is its own reward. I really enjoy eating clean, lifting weights, going on hikes in nature, etc. You can find joy in life through healthy living. YMMV if you don't have the right attitude though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take it from someone who agreed with you 30 years ago: the health you ignore today will only cause you more pain, more stress, and more cost down the road. Even if you don't live a long life, what life you do live will be a lot harder to enjoy if you're not healthy.

Maybe my next incarnation will be better.

If I have to live a whole 'nother life after this one, I'm gonna be pissed.

Trust me. Being healthy feels great. In my early twenties I used to do all the drugs, smoked and drank every day. I didn't have any obvious health issues, but I can tell you now, that being fit and healthy feels so much better. I used to feel pretty miserable, but now I feel like I can do anything. Self care is important for self love. You can still be happy, even with all the shit going on, but you need to look after yourself.

I am father to a 10 year old, so yes I care very much.

Just the opposite.

With the potential of medical expenses rising, medication costs going up, insurance becoming shittier (if you'll be able to afford it at all), staying healthy to continue to earn a paycheck (that is a depressing phrase), the potential of wide spread violence, I think its imperative to be as healthy and strong as you can be.

You may also find yourself in a position where you're the only one you can count on and if you are sickly, and weak then it will make things that much worse. Or you may find yourself in a position to help someone that has less ability to move and you'll need to be in good health for their sake.

I enjoy being able to do physical activity, to be able to run, and enjoy life while I have it. Why would I actively want to be unable to do anything I enjoy?

I disagree 100%.

If you're an American, in this health care system, you've got to be minding your health as much as possible. It can get much, much, much worse.

I used to think like this... Nothing worked for me, so I said I don't care.

Later I discovered how easy it is to be healthy, doesn't even require much exercise, just a simple eating pattern. My health improved tremendously, and life is better.

Now I really care about my health, because I feel in control of my health.

Live long and die fast: healthy people don't have long drawn out painful deaths, unhealthy people suffer for years and years before they kick the bucket. Healthspan is something under our control.

You only live once, so you should try to make your only life as good as you can.

And living with health problems - even if that meant you would have a shorter life - can suck much more than if you just lived without them.

I think I'd be perfectly fine living up to the age of... idk, 50, as long as I'm living happy and as long as I die happy and painlessly. That is literally all that matters to me.

If your life is so miserable, why would you want to live a long one? You'd rather end it as soon as possible because it's the ultimate escape from horrors. It's why when given the opportunity to have immortality, hypothetically, I always, and I mean ALWAYS, say no.

As for health itself, well... it's your body, do whatever you want with it. I don't care. My only advice is be careful out there when you do get ill.

Eat heathy, and live a long life? Jesus christ, who has the energy for that?

my energy isn't a magic spell. it comes from my habits, diet, sleep, and social support network. I do my best to cultivate each of these. when I lived in a toxic place, I moved. my government is still evil (as it was last year) but sometimes, on good days, it seems like people are starting to wake up. that would be very consequential.

I'm not perfect; I am drinking too much. so yeah I do get where you're coming from. I used to drink too much soda, too, but it was not actually all thatdifficult to cut down from 3 a day to one a month. all my brain needed was one soda to look forward to, didn't really matter when it was. and then once I got to that point, I was feeling sooo much better that there was a very clear mental map from drink-soda to feel-like-ass.

Being healthy improves your mood. Might as well be happy for whatever time we have left.

My brother just had his prostate removed, can't eat or leave his apartment for a week, and he'll probably never have a full-on erection again. My wife had to do dialysis three days a week, which left her weak and ruined after every session. A friend of mine is in pain 24/7, and has been for decades.

I am the luckiest fucker on earth, to have good health, and I've never done a damned thing to deserve it. For 50 years I ate almost nothing but crap food, and I'm flabby and never exercise.

Ain't no justice in this life. Ain't much life if you don't have your health.

I've had similar thoughts, too, but as I get older, being extremely fat just isn't something I can continue doing. Having back pain and requiring a nap every day after work just ruined my quality of life too much, and I'm only in my early 30s.

I've started running and hiking a lot more recently, and while it might be ultimately meaningless, it does a lot to help my mental health and it just feels good.

All unhealthy stuff doesn't taste good anymore though. The fun of getting drunk doesn't compensate for how hangovers are worse and longer. Cigarettes taste like ass and don't give me the kick I used to get. The fuck you mean, "just eat whatever", the slop us Americans make ain't worth shoving into my mouth.

I’ve absolutely have been stress eating. And I’m supposed to be having a friendly competition with my best friend to lose 20 pounds. She is stress eating too. Neither is winning right now.

This isn't really a question, but I'll respond with my experience.

As a kid I had a mother that was incredibly health conscious. She always fed me "alternative" foods with strong flavors. It instilled a hatred for health foods in me, but it also changed my taste buds to have a particular distaste for sweet foods.

I am now in my 30s. I still eat healthy. I don't binge eat. I stay away from overly salty foods. And guess what. My health is still a mess. I get what feels like food poisoning all the time. A lot of foods still make me sick.

At some point you need to realize that eating healthy is not always a solution. Healthy foods do not work for everybody, whether it be a severe dislike of the taste or allergies to the additives that are frequently required to make health food taste good. I have begun thinking it is better to have too many nutrients than not enough. It is better to drink a lot of juice loaded with sugar than it is to be dehydrated.

I would rather live a happy life for 40 years than an unhappy one for 80, especially given the current direction of politics and the fact I am now 50% microplastics.

In the end, you need to find out what works best for you and what makes you the happiest version of yourself.

I care about my health but I also can’t wrap my head around being old

I can think of some things. The first is that there's a real chance that, if you are living an unhealthy lifestyle, it is likely actively fueling the depressed-sounding state of mind you seem to be in. I know when things seem hopeless it's hard to want to try, but it's the successes in small decisions like that which can help us claw our way out of these pits.

The next is that relying on the "next incarnation" is wishful thinking that, I think there is a stronger case to be made that it's more likely to be disappointing than it is an improvement. We don't know how many realities there are, we don't know how many of them we would ever see (or if we could ever see others) after death, or whether or not there is anything of "us" after death to experience anything in the future. But if we're seeing the one world we do know is there, getting worse, then whatever else there is or what we can experience, we now know the total amount of them has gotten worse by this much. Put into more simple terms, we lay in the bed we make. What if you reincarnate/rebirth into a factory-farmed cow for example? There's only one sure-fire way to reduce the odds of that happening - making the choices that lead to fewer factory farmed cows coming into existence.

Death is not an escape. There is no escape. The only way out is through.

Then the other thing that has fueled some of my own decisions, is that we promote what we do, to others. If I were to smoke cigarettes for example, I would be making it more likely that those in my life, the people I care about, would be more likely to also start smoking. From that point of view, literally every choice we make has consequences that probably shouldn't be taken lightly.

There is no incarnation, this is the only life you have and it's up to you to make is as good as you can. Externalizing and blaming others for everything does not get you far.

There is no afterlife, no nirvana, no reincarnation, you just sense to exist. Until then make an impression on the universe.

I do but I can't afford it. So I ignore it. I have a lot of shit I would get looked at if I could. Like some sort of pinched nerve feeling in my abdomen that makes my right boi holler. Or my teeth. Or my back. I'd honestly go for regular checkups if I could.

Yup. Almost succeeded in having a stroke. It was caught. Better luck next time I suppose.

I admire you for saying what you think. Most of people don't do that and they hide their thoughts fearing "dislikes" . That's why I'm against the upvote down vote system, minority is important too.