I heard a refrain the other day about someone who passed away before their time: “He/she used to exercise and lead a healthy life. Sometimes you wonder, did all of that help?”

I have heard similar refrains in the past.

There are many quotes around smoking from the years it was in vogue.

An example is: “Smoking kills but we were born to die anyway.”

These quotes have been re-purposed for other unhealthy habits left, right, and center.

There are ready-made excuses to justify bad behaviour.

The strain of logic assumed in both examples is that healthy living would help us prolong our lives.

But, should it?

The question we must ask is: is doing something good a means to an end? Or, is it simply worth doing because it is good?

I would posit [ <— I like this word :)] that it is almost always the latter.

It is worth going good because it is good to do so.

It is worth living healthy because we live every day feeling in our elements, feeling alive.

Similarly, you do not read because you are going to die the most knowledgeable human being you know. You read because you will be able to use what you learn to live a wiser, happier life.

As Snoopy corrected Charlie Brown: “we don’t live once, we die once, we live every day.”

Let us not confuse quality and quantity. After all, it is not the years in our life that count. It is the life in those years.

Care because you can, care because it makes life worth living.