Hope and Delusion

I sometimes wonder if I’m confusing hope with delusion. According to statistics, I have a 20% chance of being around in five years. Sometimes I’m convinced I’m in that 20%. Sometimes I ask myself if I’m living in denial. But day to day, I’m living with hope because I’m not acting like somebody who has less than five years to live, and no one is treating me like someone whose days are numbered.

We’ve just bought our very first house and are doing massive renovations. I’ve started training for a marathon, and since I figure it will take several years at least to be able to actually finish a marathon, I think this is fairly optimistic. I even bought some new clothes finally after several failed attempts (selecting items, then putting them all back thinking I was wasting money since I wouldn’t be around to wear them very long).

I’m not consciously thinking that I’ll live to be 50, 60, or 70. I wonder if people who are 70 or so look at the average life span for their demographic and say, “According to statistics, I only have five more years to live.” Of course these people know they won’t live forever, but if there’s nothing wrong with them, do they think that maybe they’ll just carry on indefinitely until something DOES go wrong with their bodies? Shouldn’t I live like that and assume that the cancer’s gone so I’ll live indefinitely until something happens later to tell me otherwise?