The seven habits that lead to happiness in old age
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Tl;dwr
Don't smoke, don't drink, be physically healthy and active, continue education.
All good (common-sense) line items for actually making it to becoming an old person. How valuable this milestone is remains for the reader to decide.
Stupid fucking article.
Dear Arthur C. Brooks (author of this bin of an article): You are a content generation Tool.
You make a good point about avoiding ending up the state of being old and in poor physical condition. Existing as a prisoner in your own body is a solid definition of living in a Waking Hell.
I think people deserve access to good information (we all do these days, via the great equalizer that is The Internet) and make their own choices. That said, I'm not too keen on subsidizing the costs they choose to externalize.
Yet still, for many who never engage in any of the deleterious behaviors, they end up dying from terminal cancer or being T-boned by an idiot while waiting at a stop light. Life is supremely unfair, and we control nothing. Control is always an illusion at best.
The task falls to each of us to decide what we want to try to mitigate the risk of.
If friends and family are pushing you to use your money on them, keep in mind that ,in the future, when you need them to help with your expenses they won't be around or they won't have the money to help you.