December 23, 2023
Understanding how to live longer while remaining healthy in our rat race society can prepare us for our journey.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to live a long and healthy life? Regardless of what people say, we live in a capitalist society where we need money to survive or to sustain a longer lifespan. In a perfect world, nobody would work a day in their lives. People would enjoy their time on Earth rather than get up and head to a 9-to-5 job every day. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. Let’s take a short journey to understand longevity.
Meanings Around the World
It is hard to assign one definition to longevity. Longevity refers to living a good longer life attributable be either their lifestyle or family genetics. It is living a longer life and sustaining it and in turn contributing much to society. Longer living people’s contribution to society outlives their life here on earth. For others, charitable acts lead to a better society and a sense of purpose. Look at Mother Teresa of India, she has lived to 87 years old. Many religions add that doing things like this leads to a better afterlife, therefore, contributes to longevity. However, the general opinion is skewed towards making money for longevity. Makes sense somehow, we have to admit to the fact that if we live a longer life, we need to be financially stable to sustain a healthy longer life. Meanwhile, another interpretation of longevity combines all these things into one. A person who lives a good and healthy life while giving to others and contributing positively to society combines all facets of a longer “well lived” life.
Historical Times
Back in the olden times, societies noted some people who had extreme longevity. People were happier because there wasn’t a race to own the latest gadgets to show off or their lifestyles were simple or perhaps diet contributed to it. There was no medical advancement in those times, but people were known to have lived long. Adam was known to have died at age 930, Noah at age 950, Moses at age 120 while Methuselah at age 969. While it was common for people to die in their 30s in Biblical times. Mentions of extreme longevity are mentioned in various religious books. The Hindu saint Shivapuri Baba lived to about 137 years old. However, many people believe that these ages are inaccurate and do not represent the actual number of solar years. But to note, the “average life spans” were 30’s for women because of difficult childbirth and 40’s for men during the Dark ages, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period.
Modern Lifespans
However, despite the added stress, people today live longer than before. Modern medicine has increased the average lifespan to around 60’s age in years. Look at how the US Social Security has designed its full retirement age at 65 during the 1930s. While there is a significant improvement in the average lifespan around the world, it is not all sunshine and rainbows. The average life expectancy in the developed world greatly surpasses what we see in developing nations. For example, Sudan has a life expectancy of a mere 65 years while Afghanistan has one of just over 64 years. Compared to the UK’s 81 and Australia’s 82 years, we can see a clear trend showing that people in developed countries live longer. Here in the US, after the year 2020s the average life span currently is 77 for male and 82 for female. For the extreme longevity…notable people in France was Jeanne Calment (1875-1997) lived for 122 years. In Japan, Jaroemon Kumura lived for 116 years from 1897-2013. In the US, Sarah Knauss lived to be 119 years old. In Jamaica, Violet Brown lived to be 117 years old. There’s one from the Philippines Francisca Montes-Susano who is still living at present and her age is 123 years, born September 11th, 1897. We can either attribute this to a better healthcare systems or genetics played a part in these countries. One thing is apparent from the data, people in the developing world have seen strides since the 1960s that have boosted the average life expectancy by almost 20 to 30 years. In contrast, developed nations have seen a less significant rise of around 10 years on average. I have read an article about one particular small town in Italy, Acciaroli, which has notable long living happy townsfolk who says their happy 300 residents blame it on their wine, Mediterranean food and lifestyle of helping each other in the community. Every one of them knows everybody. Twenty percent of those 300 residents lived past 110 years.
Key Takeaways
For the bulk of our lives, our elders have told us that the modern lifestyle we live is going to cause our lifespan to reduce. However, we have seen a trend of increasing lifespans worldwide due to advances in modern medicine and purpose to go on with life. It is too early to make an accurate assumption about the topic, but we will have to wait and see how the Covid-19 pandemic will affect longevity in the long run.