I don't want to be dramatic, but are we dying?

Is it me or do we all have a lot of ailments these days? I’m 46 and even among my friends younger than me it seems like everyone has something. 

There was one day a couple weeks ago I visited my aunt in rehab post-stroke, went to see my friend who's getting chemo for pancreatic cancer and right after that, Izzy and I went to have dinner with a friend recovering from breast cancer, and her teenage daughter. 

I have friends with autoimmune diseases and vertigo. A friend in and out of the hospital for ovarian cysts. Family members with sinus issues that need surgery, blood clots, temporary blindness, a stroke. 

Everyone I know has some form of depression, anxiety, or neurodiversity. And those of us in menopause have 4,786 symptoms on the daily. I can’t get through a real conversation without talking about doctors and insurance, hormones and vitamins, replaced joints and achy ones.

Do you think it's modern life that's destroying us all? I can't talk to a friend who is not dealing with some kind of issue. 

And I wonder, is it the way we are living our lives, not individually, but as a collective? 

Is it this really stressful life we live in, where inputs are constantly coming at us and we don't have the opportunity to shut it off? 

Is it that we hear too much about how terrible the world is, the destruction (both natural and humanmade), and is that affecting our health and our bodies and our minds? 

It can't not affect it, right?

Or is it actually the technology — all the computer waves and radiation and data centers? Are the environmental toxins killing us?

Or is it offloading ourselves to the internet and AI? 

Is it the stress, the need to keep up with everything and everyone?

It’s on my mind as we consider where we are going to move next. I live abroad, but I worry about what happens if we have to return to the US — to NYC specifically. My friends and family members in the city with kids talk as much about the pressure of school lotteries and extracurriculars as they do about ailments. 

The pressure starts so young, even if you don't want it to. And then it continues into every age: we need to travel, we need to get the next promotion, we need to write our book, we need to have a creative pursuit, we need to buy the right house, lose weight and find a good partner. 

How do we live this life where we can still incorporate all the things we want and not drive ourselves insane from trying to do too much?

I spoke to a friend about this. She pointed out that people used to die younger so maybe some of these ailments we live with now used to just kill us? We got the gift and burden of longevity whether we asked for it or not.

And perhaps we now talk about things we didn’t used to. I certainly talk about my hormones and all the indecency of menopause a whole lot more than any of my ancestors did.

Do you have a lot more ailments than you expected to have at your age? What do you attribute it to? And what are you doing about it?

I’m going to keep seeing a PT and masseuse to ease my body woes. I’m going to keep taking my hormones and my vitamins and getting blood work to know what my body is trying to tell me. I joined a gym, and I’ll keep doing my walks, yoga and meditation. I’m playing more and scrolling less. 

And I’m setting things down. I have a very long list of things I want to achieve in this lifetime (as one client calls it an “Abundant Life” list), but I can’t do it all and I certainly can’t do it all right now. So maybe I’ll drink a cup of matcha and read a good book instead.