Beyond Tomorrow

"If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."  ~ George Burns

The late George Burns, who lived just past his 100th birthday, often joked about his age.  While the above quote was said in jest, I think there is much truth in the statement.

Most of us are busy living our lives today, trying to keep up with demanding schedules and busy families.  We spend very little time, if any, thinking about longevity.  You may or may not aspire to reach 100, but what if you do?  What do you want your life to look like when you're in your 80's, 90's or beyond?  That may seems like an irrelevant question to ask right now, particularly if you're younger than 50.  The 80's seem a hundred years away, so why worry about them now?

The answer to that question, of course, is that they will be here sooner than you realize :-).  The choices we're making today will directly impact not only the length of our life, but also the quality of our latter years.  That's good news, because the younger you are, the more you can change the health trajectory of your future!  So many of the diseases that can compromise the quality of our lives, or even shorten them, are directly related to obesity.  By getting to a healthy weight now and incorporating healthy habits, we can move into the latter decades of our lives healthy and with the ability to live life at its fullest.

I would like to someday celebrate my 100th birthday, providing I can do so with a decent measure of both physical and mental health.  I'm making choices today to improve my chances of reaching that milestone.  My life is in God's hands and I don't know the number of my days, but if the Lord allows me to reach 100, I want to celebrate that day as healthy as I can possibly be.

The choices we make today will not only impact us next month and next year, but they will impact our health decades from now.  More than ever, it's important that we choose wisely :-)