What happened to prevention was better than cure?

Read in an article today of a Mexican man that was grossly overweight and was considered to the one of the heaviest man in the world. He's 40 years old and weighs 86 stones (dunno how much that is but you should see his picture). Apparently he has appealed to the doctors to reduce weight, cos he does not want to die. "If they can operate on my stomach, then ... listen, I am not afraid of dying, we were born to die," he said. "But I'm afraid to die without trying. That, yes, I am frightened of."

The statement the man made really set me thinking. I was pretty much brought up in a culture of prevention is better than cure. If you want to lose weight, you watch what you eat and you diet. If you don't want to fall sick, then you take care of your health, if you don't want to come to a point where you don't have money, then you save! But soemhow it seems that culture has changed. It has become somewhat of a passive attitude towards life and of self.

This man chooses not to watch his diet and he claims he's afraid of dying. Sheesh, you would think that if he really was, then he would not be in this state. People today are very good at copping out. When they face a problem, its usually the easy way out. If they are having a hard time at work, they quit and change jobs. When a task is too hard, they give up. Perseverance is no longer a virtue, its virtually dead.

On a morbid note, for those who have caught the movie "Saw and Saw II", the plot of the movie is about a psycho who places peoples in situations where they have to do something in order to live, it can be painful and self-mutilating, but if they go through it, they will survive. The lesson he was trying to teach those people to appreciate life, and only when they are about to lose it, do they realise its preciousness. Scary thought, but its true isn't it?

How would you live your life if you knew you had a couple more months to life? Would it be any different now? If yes, why? Let's endeavour to live life to the fullest.