My bad mood doesn’t have anything to do with world events. Well, not directly. I mean, yes, our country is a hot mess, and, yes, I think most people on social media are cowards, but no, they are not the fountainhead of my bad mood.
Everything else is though.
It’s been a rough day (and a rough few weeks). I Googled “how to dip off the radar” and here’s how the results came back:
“Find your sweet spot and incorporate regular breaks into your year.” (*me, useless)
“’Under the radar’ is a clear dip powder for nails.” (*me, WTF?)
And my favorite, “Someone who wanted to steal the Malaysia Airlines jet could theoretically shut off the transponder and dip down to an altitude of 5,000 feet.” (*me, woopsie…)
Thanks, Google.
What do you do when your ambition exceeds your patience? You know what? I take that question back. My mood has nothing to do with ambition or patience. Or… directly, anyway. But I do want to tell pretty much everyone in my life to kiss off. Is that bad? How terrible of a person does this make me? That I want to tell everyone I know to go away?
I know what I’m not: I’m not a convenience. I’m not a robot. I’m not anyone’s motivation. I’m not cheating death. I’m not making a modern career. I’m not feeding the flame. I’m not known for what I love. I’m not baring all. I’m not expecting things. I’m not depressed. I’m not feeling all of life’s problems. I’m not always right. I’m not always wrong. I’m not breaking bad.
I am: Looking for more trees and less cactus. Wanting to write more and market less. Experience more and watch less. Breathe more and grunt less. Get hurt more and stay safe less. Hang on the bottom rung more and climb less. I want outrageous ideas. I want every bit, handpicked.
I think it’s time for a new chapter. I think it’s time for something bold. Now I’ve heard what people have said about me in the past. That I’m overbearing and even self-destructive. Well, good thing I have immense regenerative abilities, eh? I promise you I can grow back a new tail!
This next season I think is going to be all about extremes, intensity, obsession and desires. Some very serious feelings are bothering me right now.
First order of business might be to get this bad mood in check. I mean, I don’t think I want everyone to kiss off. It just sounds good.
My deep need to express my point of view on current events comes in spurts. Sometimes I only go a few days, beating down my personal judgments; sometimes, I can last a whole week or two, absent but paying attention. I reckon people don’t always want my opinion. I imagine it can divide a room — which might be a good thing because I hear diversity is the new black.
(There is absurd irony in that last sentence that is unintentional)
But things are going on (some new things, some old things) that I just can’t figure out. They are mind-boggling-keep-me-up-at-night things that I can only not talk about for so long. So here we go – a list of 10 (in no particular order, although I did purposely save one for last … don’t rush ahead …):
1. Bill Gates is dimming the sun. The man is off his rocker. Where do I begin? Shouldn’t the globe get to vote on this? And when I get to the poll (because of mail-in ballots), you can bet your butt I’ll oppose geoengineering. He’s crossing a line. A really, really, dangerous line. A show of hands of approval for Gates to turn down the sun better only show Gates’ hands. If yours goes up, I’m coming for you. I want you to look me in the eye when you tell me why we should let this man spray a bunch of particles into the stratosphere. Our world is not a science experiment.
2. When did we move past Cuomo? What happened to the coverage of the nursing home deaths’ investigation? I want to know the results of said investigation, or is the goodfella too hot for being taken down? I’ve not heard a peep. And, while we’re discussing Mr. Cuomo, where are all the feminists? The #MeToo’ers? What, they pick and choose which victims to back and which predators to crucify? Hashtag bleepbleepbleep. You all are letting these poor women down. You’re letting me down.
3. Let’s not move past Cuomo. I heard Cuomo wants to give more than $15,000 to undocumented immigrants affected by the pandemic, ultimately benefitting around 300,000 people in the state of New York that lost their jobs during the pandemic. WHAT? First, they’re undocumented. They are breaking the law. They are not law-abiding. They are criminals. Maybe hard-working criminals, but criminals nonetheless, and $15,000 is not pocket change. Second, there are more than 19 million people in the state. While I don’t imagine all 19 million have lost work, I did find this article that says 1 million jobs were lost due to Covid. And until they ban math, this means an additional 700,000 law-abiding New Yorkers lost their jobs. Where is their money?
4.Did you know the Dalai Lama’s family lives in Bloomington, IN? I am flabbergasted. I have a client that said he sold them a house. This makes me smile for absolutely no reason.
5. Where is the outrage? Oh wait, look at his mug shot. Got it. Thanks. For the record, five of the six people killed were children. All five of the children were under the age of 10. Don’t know the whole story – what the grown-ups were into (or not into), but it doesn’t change the fact that five children were murdered. Who decided this wasn’t a story worthy of the media?
6. Pronouns. I’m seriously confused about this. I know it is a substitute for a noun or a noun phrase, but how is it … how do we say … how exactly is it used as a person? Serious question. If I’m writing a letter to Robert, and Robert identifies as he/him/his, how do I start my letter? Dear, He. And how does he sign his letters? Sincerely, Him. And then there is “his.” Can you imagine being in a meeting and announcing, “His’ report is late.” “Whose?” “His.” This is Abbott & Costello, ya’ll.
7. Marketing tactics because they think we’re dumb? Literally, this is the oldest trick in the book – cutting the price by five dollars or five cents because marketers believe “it’s more appealing” to the consumer. For instance, this camera. Bringing it under the $7,000 mark by five bucks isn’t an incentive. Try selling it straight up at $7,000 on the product merits – not to mention the brilliant co-collaborators that designed the camera. If I can afford $6,995 for a camera, I can afford $7,000. Just a crap marketing ploy that annoys me.
—These last three are big ones for me. I gotta take a break before I write them up. You should take a break before you read them. I get hot and heavy, and you might want to prepare…
8. A defining difference between the right and the left. The right is all talk, no action. The left is no talk, all action.
One reason our country is in a state of mess is not that the left talked for years, “Oh, hey, we need to take over the country and remake it. How should we do this? Let’s put this on the agenda for the next session.” No. They acted. None of what is happening should be thought of as “outlandish and impossible.” They acted. They got into our schools. They got into our tech companies. They got into the media. They didn’t discuss their ideas about how to infiltrate. They infiltrated. The right, on the other hand, talks.
For Instance, voter IDs.
We all know (we do all know, right??) that showing ID to cast your vote is the ONLY way to vote. While the left wants to say half of the country is suppressed because they don’t have ID, obviously the thing to do is get people IDs, not do away with ID requirements.
Here’s an example showing how the left is acting. HR 1. This is a bill that every citizen needs to read right now. And then read more. And more. And more. See what they’re doing.
Here’s an example showing how the right is talking. I’ve listened to several podcasts (conservatives) that discuss the fabulous idea “let’s get these people IDs.”
It’s. a. podcast.
It’s someone sitting in a studio with a microphone talking about the solution to the problem-of-the-day (because tomorrow they’ll talk about Woke Culture. And on Friday, it’ll be about the MLB. Then it’s on to the border crisis. Then Hunter.).
Where is legislation? Where is funding?
Did you know nonprofits have been working on getting the homeless population IDs for years? Phoenix Rescue Mission drives around the streets and talks to these people. What do you need? An ID is keeping you from getting a job? Getting a place to stay? A bank account? A car? All you need is an ID and you can make fundamental changes? Phoenix Rescue Mission has contacted Records Departments all across the country, tracking down birth certificates; they’ve stood in line at the DMV for hours; they’ve paid the fees. Small, struggling nonprofits have been trying to do this on their own for years.
Conservatives talk in news cycles. They don’t do a whole lot of anything else to enact change. If these podcasters/senators/representatives would pick the issue they’re passionate about and stop podcasting (although their platform is the starting point) and start organizing, maybe we might have a chance of survival. Instead, they spout off “solutions.” Solutions that are hard for an average everyday Joe to organize into an impactful movement – especially if they live in New York legally and lost their job a year ago. OK, I’m facetious. But If these conservatives would drop their microphones and start organizing groups instead of directing their listeners, “help people get IDs,” well, that’s the real come-up. I could go on, but rather, I’ll move on.
9. No amendment to the Constitution is absolute. Is this true? I honestly don’t know. I think I’ll be crushed if I find out it is. Really diving into this statement, though, and it seems to me that nearly all of the Bill of Rights come with restrictions and limitations. Here’s where I’d rather have the truth than some grand-standing conservative bash the statement purely because Biden said it. This is important. It’s not life-changing, but it sure is mind-blowing.
Aaaand… we come to the hottest topic for me. Before I get into #10, I want to say I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am not. I don’t think. Maybe. Probably not. But, oh, maybe. A few weeks ago, I had a client send me content that included a link to their “website.” Turns out the link took me to a Russian landing page. For a hot minute, I thought I opened a portal between Russian Intelligence and USA Today. Once I came out of the dark corner in my closet and removed the foil from my windows, I contacted the legal department. That’s as far as my “conspiracy” theories have ever gone… until Esther.
10. Are there two Biden’s walking among us? Esther conspires there are. She sends me images of who she thinks are two different Biden’s. She insists the one that was sworn in is different than the one we see on the screen today. Here’s the latest picture she sent me. It was taken 3 days apart. If you take a serious look at it, there are a few marked differences. His nose. His ears. Hairline. Eyes. Even the double chin is off. Bags under the eyes don’t match. I’ve watched Biden on TV, and at times his skin is thin and ghostly-white. Other times, it looks like he’s gotten a total dose of natural vitamin D. And his eyes – sometimes they’re blue… regular. Sometimes they’re black (and beady). I don’t know; this makes both my head and my stomach hurt.
Can you imagine? I don’t want to. To think dimming the sun shocked me!
Texting while walking. (This is how “butch” became “bitch.”)
Food prepping. (Food prepping takes 4 hours. Eating takes 3 seconds. Washing Tupperware takes 7 days and 7 nights.)
Reading long Instagram captions. (When I stay on a post for too long the algorithm thinks because I read one inspirational meme, I want to read a thousand inspirational memes.)
Trying to move things with my mind (and Googling “How to move things with my mind”).
Humblebragging. (Like making lists and bragging about how happy I am.)
Happy October—the best month of the year. It’s finally fall in Arizona. Know what that means? Absolutely nothing. It’s still 90 degrees outside. Fun fact: Arizona is actually closer to the sun than the earth. I drove with my windows down tonight anyway. All the landscapers were out scalping and planting winter grass seed. Planting a winter lawn while it’s 90+ degrees doesn’t make much sense, but then again neither does Biscuits and Gravy flavored potato chips, and that’s apparently a thing that’s happening. Sometimes you just have to roll with it (and try not to barf). Really though, when the temperature shifts from 110 to 90 and we roll our windows down, we’re really no different than Midwesterners who wear shorts when it’s 40 degrees in March. So happy October. Fall is here!
First, I will tell you a story about something that happened to me in the past. Next, if I’m as talented as I think I am, I will connect that story with what is happening presently. And finally, because I think I am that talented, I’m going to bring it full circle and roll it into the future.
Once upon a time, in a land called Tucson, I picked up my father to drive him to the doctor’s office…
“You should get in the carpool lane.”
“I don’t want to get in the carpool lane.”
“WHY?”
“Well, because we’re going the same speed as the people in the carpool lane, plus it makes me nervous. Driving all fast next to the wall like that, and then not changing lanes if I feel like I want to. It’s restrictive. And if you drive next to the wall, you have to drive perfectly. If you drive in the middle lane, you have a little bit more room for error. And you can escape.”
Most people think this way. Most people think it’s perfectly sensible to drive in the carpool lane if two people are in the car. It’s like, “YAY! Carpool lane!” I’ve actually heard people get that excited.
I am not one of those people. As a matter of fact, I prefer to not even take the freeway. I’d instead take a longer, more scenic route because I may decide on the way to wherever I’m going that I don’t want to go there; I’d like to go somewhere else first. It’s much harder to make choices like that when you’re on the freeway. It becomes an ordeal.
My whole issue with driving in the carpool lane directly relates to the fact I like to have an escape mechanism. This also speaks loudly to the truth of my intense need to make choices: New choices. Different choices. Better choices. Choices. MY choices.
Being able to make choices is my way of maintaining my freedom. Everything I do, from the type of jobs I hold to the places I decide to live (which is a big one lately) to my nightly plans, etc., etc. My disdain for the carpool lane reveals how deep this is for me.
You may be thinking, well, what if you’re going to work? You can’t just decide to drive somewhere else first, or what if you have plans? You can’t just decide to change them because you feel like it. Well, I know that’s what you’d think. However, I often decide I’d instead like to do something else for that very reason — because I feel like it.
We have free will, so there really isn’t anything we have to do. We can make choices no matter what our spouses say, our bosses require, our president mandates. But lately, there are things that society or people have decided we have to do, which makes our will to stay free less simple to decide.
Our president is forcing our family, friends, coworkers, colleagues into making choices that some don’t want to make.
You guessed it, I’m talking V* mandates in the workplace. The people who do not want to take the V are being forced to decide to keep their job or lose their job. If you’re on the fence, being forced into a decision can be a great thing (but only if you’re stalled), or it can be an awful thing (even a selfish thing).
Let’s call it what it really is: forcible penetration of a medical instrument into a person’s body against their will to deliver chemicals they don’t want into it. This is no less than medical rape. I have the right to decide what goes into my body. You have the right to determine what goes into yours.
(Imagine the outrage if the government enforced weight loss mandates for the obese to relieve the health care system? And while I’m here, If I am forced to wear a mask to protect your health, I’m going to start slapping McDonald’s out of your hands too.)
Everything that subsequently happens in our lives is the result of choices. And those choices do change our experience, even if for a brief amount of time. I have to remind myself that we are never stuck. Even if we feel as if there is no way out, there is. Of course, if I had remembered this in the past, I’d have a list of more life lessons and experiences under my belt, but I do not in the absence of action.
I admit sometimes, I’m afraid the choices I make will affect me negatively. In turn, they’ll leave less room in the future for any option to make a different choice. It’s harder to veer in another direction when flying down the freeway than it is if you’re cruising on a country road.
But I suppose this is just fear, and fear is a thing you create. It isn’t an actual thing. Action is.
And boy do I see action rising in the air (shoutout to Southwest, holla!), and I predict a lot more action very soon.
I’m running a marathon, and I’m at mile 20, and I’m tired.
This is the perfect segue. Kick me in the shins if you think otherwise.
Today.
It’s either like, ok, I’m using ALL my brain cells here, and the client doesn’t give a rat’s ass, or I’m using zero brain cells here.
There’s this story of a girl. She was 20 years old when she started writing her first novel. It took her 10 years to finish it. She was 30 when she hit the NY Times best seller list.
She was hailed a genius for the times. Her book was being made into a motion picture; it was translated into seven languages. Everyone wanted her on their talk show and podcast. She was on the news doing interviews almost daily. She won literary awards.
She had it all.
Ten years later — age 41 — and she was unable to write and finish another book. She had hundreds of starts, but not even a first chapter.
She went down this dark path of assumption. With decades left in her, she feared that anything she wrote from that point forward would be judged by the world as ‘the work that came after the freakish success of her first book’. She started to believe that it was exceedingly likely that her biggest success was behind her.
This led her to drink gin at 9am.
The lesson: Me, like she, needs to know to put a safe distance between myself and the anxiety if I want to continue to do the thing I love — and that’s writing. Distance between myself and what the reaction of that writing is going to be from now on.
(Also, if you really start to get into this gin thing, there is another realm: vintage gins.)
I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the guest quoted Brené Brown. I’ve never read her books or listened to her podcast, but I did catch her 2010 breakout TED Talk, The power of vulnerability. Back then, I immediately tagged her as an expert in all things human connection.
Remembering I have her in the category of ‘expert,’ plus the quote I had just heard, and it was plenty good for me to search up one of her podcasts. The one I listened to included both Tim Ferriss and Dax Shepard.
Tim Ferriss said something. His comment brought me to another podcast.
I proceeded down a long and torturous podcast rabbit hole.
Days (and so many ridiculous podcast hours) later, I listened to Megyn Kelly and former Portland State University professor Peter Boghossian.
Who cares how I got here, right? THIS is where it all gets good. (Everything before the ‘but’ doesn’t matter.)
Boghossian talks about “lived experience” and how it becomes a reality, regardless of the facts. His example and I won’t do it justice, so you may want to bring up the podcast on your own, was centered around the number of unarmed black men shot by police each year. One woman said the number is 22,700 (unarmed black men shot by police each year). Another woman said it’s 7,000 that are shot.
As if living in an age of “fake news” and “alternative facts” doesn’t already make it hard to know what to believe, let’s throw in “lived experience” or “post-truth.”
According to the lived experiences of these two women, they set the number far, FAR outside the actual.
“My opinions are no longer things ripe for judgment and discussion, but rather they are opportunities for the fundamental aspects of myself to be “right” and to be considered “right” by the people around me.” ~ Kate Colombo
Gone are the days when people would say, I think. Now it’s, I feel. This language ultimately positions the speaker to regard his opinions less like ideas he’s informed with facts and more like personal truths. And, wham, there you have it. This form of discourse displaces the importance of truth and replaces it with “what is true for me.”
I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Before today I would have said speaking my truth is acceptable and should be considered more honest than any mere statement of facts.
I’m not so sure anymore.
Can we speak our truth sometimes and have it received as truth, but other times default to actual facts for truth? Is that possible? Serious questions. I’m not choosing a side. I mean, our personal experience influences how we decide things, but is that just an illusion?
I guess the truth is, I don’t know what the truth is.
I never realized the work that goes into being a girl. And it IS work, by the way.
Props to all the queens that have a formal “process” for, and spend money on “products” lining their bathroom shelves.
H-E-DOUBLE-TOOTHPICKS.
I had a date on Sunday; A tennis date. I’ve written about date disasters before. And my disasters aren’t just when I wear wrong outfits or the conversation is stilted (although I once talked about sheep for three hours). I have also been known to hint a bit too boldly. Cuss repeatedly. Eat off of the wrong plate. Forget his name. Sneeze in his mouth when he tries to kiss me. One time I tripped on a doormat and tackled him to the floor. Another time I suggested we go to his favorite place. We ended up at Sprouts Market. He bought hummus.
Yes, my road to finding love has been looooong and rocky. But on Sunday I had a brilliant idea to bring my date fails to an end.
LASHES!
Luscious, lavish, ostentatious, eyelashes.
I bought a kit. Watched a video. And glued a strip of falsies to my own delicate, wispy lashes. My new full lash line was a modern-day miracle.
I don’t know anything about false eyelashes, or lash extensions, but these were pretty easy to figure out. They’re little sections, or clusters, that you group under your lash and fuse with an adhesive. Aside from the fact that I miscounted and glued four clusters to one eye and only three clusters to the other, they looked pretty amazing.
I looked pretty amazing.
I strutted over to the tennis courts like I was the hottest babe alive!
I’m on the tennis court with Robert and I rub my eye. For no reason except there was a tickle of wind. I rub my eye and pull all the pretty little lashes on my right eye.
I cup my eye, drop to my knees, cuss. Always the cuss. He rushes over. I’m sure he’s thinking my eyeball fell out. I tell him I have something in my eye and I run to the restroom.
I look in the mirror which is smudged with something yellow and I can’t see shit.
What are the odds he’ll notice I only have eyelashes on one eye?
If I pull out the lashes on the other eye, what are the odds he’ll remember I ever had eyelashes?
Shit, my shirt is touching the sink.
Maybe if I stay in here long enough, he’ll get bored and leave.
WWJD?
Maybe he won’t notice.
What the fuck did I ever do to make the dating Gods hate me like this?!
Did he leave yet?
I’m going to have to pull out all my lashes.
Good thing my eyebrows are real.
(He called and wants to play tennis again on Thursday. Fucking dating Gods. Who’s laughing now??)
Give it some time, and I bet the new theory will be that the unvaxxed are solely responsible for the mutations. There will always be some reason why the unvaccinated are responsible for everything.
As a reasonably empathetic woman, I feel like I’m in the twilight zone when I hear leftist women speak about abortion. Firstly, baby-making is like a superpower, and secondly, there are so many ways to choose not to exercise the superpower at all. And, of course, thirdly, if you were the victim of a crime to which it forced your superpower into existence, there are also options. Killing babies is wrong, and I don’t relate to or understand these lefty women.
A California school district is in the news for saying they will be testing students via temperature, nasal swab & BLOOD DRAW.
Veep Harris is in the news for telling folks to start their Christmas shopping early to avoid possible global supply chain issues (which suggests more economic lockdowns may be on the horizon).
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is in the news admitting that, as of yet, scientists have not been able to identify a vaccine that can stop variants in their tracks: “Every time that the variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it. They are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine. We haven’t identified any yet…”
Biden is in the news for (well, several reasons not limited to) urging corporations, private businesses and nonprofits to mandate employee vaccinations.
I want to look at this through an unbiased lens. I mean, I can be unbiased. I think.
I know none of us are truly unbiased, and I do have biases. One, maybe two. But I think if you read what I’m about to show you, number one, you’ll realize why I’m so biased, and number two, you’ll see that my biases are, indeed, founded. And my attempt is to deliver it in such a way that it does not tilt your biases, rather it informs and educates. (*fingers crossed emoji)
Just to be upfront, my biases (this word is already getting old): I believe we need to make health the main thing because healthy people are less vulnerable to ending up in the hospital or in ICU. And they’re surely less likely to suffer adverse health issues.
Here we go.
According to the research (see below for the link), out of 4.8 million hospitalized adults (over age 18) and across 800 different hospitals in the U.S., 540,000 individuals were hospitalized due to C*19.
(I would have thought this number would have been much higher.)
Of course there might be data that’s not included, and this research was only conducted from March 2020 to March 2021, but we’re talking about 11% of the hospitalization visits from 800 different hospitals were for C*19.
This new data found 94.9% of C*19 patients had the following common underlying health conditions (which most of us probably expect to be present) (except for number four) (and that all were highly preventable):
High blood pressure
Lipid imbalances
Obesity
Anxiety
In fact, the entire top 10 most prevalent conditions listed in this research were caused largely by people’s nutrition and lifestyle choices.
It’s been long known that underlying health conditions were risk factors for more severe infections and death, but this data from 540,000 infected patients across 800 different hospitals shares new insights.
NEW INSIGHTS. NEW INSIGHTS. NEW INSIGHTS. NEW INSIGHTS.
While it’s known that the number of underlying conditions that someone has increases the risk of death by several orders of magnitude, it’s important to know that 5.5% of all the hospitalized patientsDID NOT HAVE one or more chronic health conditions. This says that half the C*19 hospitalizations included at least one, maybe more, pre-existing chronic health conditions.
The two conditions most strongly associated with risk of death were obesity and anxiety/fear-related disorders.
In fact, the strongest factor for death was obesity at 30% increased risk of death, and anxiety-based disorders at 28% increased risk of death.
This is where I have to pause and be critical of the bingeable fear-based messaging and propaganda, and misinformation from the main-stream media outlets.
Think back. Heck, look forward. A lot of people were so scared they didn’t leave their house, they sanitized, they wore masks and gloves, they had social-distancing hula hoops around them when they walked outside. I have to wonder if this unintended harm associated with the fear-based messaging can actually make people more susceptible to getting severely sick or even dying? I’ll let you decide what you think.
And then there is Diabetes with complication which shows 26% increased odds of death.
Figure 1 (above) shows the prevalence of the most frequent underlying health conditions in the sample of hospitalized patients.
What you’re seeing is this:
Essential Hypertension (and this means elevated levels of blood pressure) is prevalent in about 50% of individuals
Disorders of Lipid Metabolism (this involves cholesterol)
Obesity
Diabetes with Complication
You can read the list but look at all that’s at the top. This is preventable stuff.
Let’s get to what I find eye-popping and mind-blowing: Anxiety and fear-related disorders only made up about 20% of the most frequent underlying conditions, but they were strongly linked with death. Remember: 28% increased odds in terms of death. See above.
This is important to hit again regarding the unintended harms from the fear-based messaging and the disempowering information. What is the neurobiology of anxiety and the results of how our thoughts transmute specific messaging into our immune system? Anyone know that answer?
Constantly consuming fear-based messaging… death, dying, problems, the economy, the border, Afghanistan, Christmas shopping in August, and, and, and… all this can obviously contribute to anxiety – and now we’re seeing that anxiety is a frequently linked challenge here.
Eye-popping.
Figure 2 (above) shows the risk/ratio of death and the chances of going on a ventilator. What you’re looking at is:
Individuals that have no conditions compared to at least one pre-existing condition are 1.5x more likely to die.
Now compare individuals who have two to five pre-existing conditions compared to those who have none, we’re talking about 2.55x higher likelihood of death.
And here’s where it gets really interesting: some people have 10 or more conditions, and, yes, the prevalence of pre-existing conditions vary state from state (on the low end from 20% up to 63% depending on where you live), but individuals who have between six and 10 pre-existing conditions are 3.29x more likely to die compared to individuals who have none.
And I get it – you might have bad genetics (which no one can control). Mom and dad gave you a bad deck of cards. Maybe you have an autoimmune disease that’s inheritable. Maybe you have asthma. Maybe you have a pre-existing condition you can’t control, but I find it hard to believe that if you have six or seven—or 10—that you can blame all of them on genetics.
I can also believe there might be a small percentage of people that do have maybe 2-5 conditions that are 100% inherited, but personally I think it’s much more likely that individuals who have multiple chronic conditions got them from their own nutrition, lack of exercise, lifestyle, and bad habits. ßbiases
You can blame genetics. You can blame information. You can blame the system. But really, we need to take ownership.
We all have access to information and to the internet. I mean this isn’t 1920. With that in mind, and while I do have compassion that some people are not actually getting health information, I believe this is why the CDC, WHO, our government, should all be disseminating the information. This should be the message. I mean, if the more [preventable] pre-existing conditions you have, the more likely you are to die or end up on a ventilator or in ICU, then why are we not talking about preventing death with good nutrition, sleep habits, exercise… ?
Unbiased/biased. How about just plain common sense. We need to prioritize health with proper nutrition, exercise, and a whole host of other preventative strategies. Yes, these are my biases and I’m critical of main-stream media networks because they have (for whatever reason) ignored health and omitted this entire topic in their reporting. I think it’s disingenuous and dishonest. And saying I’m critical of the government for their fear mongering might be the understatement of the century. But we could save so many lives if we make health the focal point rather than death.
I’m in a bad mood so I thought I’d blog.
