Of Means and Ends

In The American Health Care Paradox, specifically the “Learning from Abroad” chapter (which focuses on Scandinavian countries, a convenient coincidence for me!) an excerpt from an interview with a Danish Health and Medicine Authority states:

“People should know that health is not the goal of life.  But health is definitely a means that you can use to choose exactly the life you want because if you don’t have health, then your possibilities… cannot flow and grow… We have also tried to work with the municipalities (to say) maybe you can use health, not because you want to make people healthy, but because health can then also help people learn better and it can help people in getting a job.”

However, even if I choose to pursue health so that I am able to choose the type of existence that I wish to lead, there is no guarantee that I will not get Alzheimer’s disease and forget all about the good life I led. 

I know, I brought it back to AD… but hey, while I’m questioning living a healthy life, the question that comes up is “why live a healthy life if it won’t matter because I’ll forget all about it?”

To that I must ask you, and remind myself, to live in the present.

I have absolutely no idea what next week will look like for me, and I’m trying to control what my future in 10, 20, 40 years will look like?!  (What am I thinking?)

This talk of means and ends takes me back to my Philosophy 100 class, and really makes me think about the goal of our healthcare system. 

If health is not the goal of life, then what is?