Friends help you live longer

Ok, I give up! I'm a news blog - but only SOMETIMES! This article says it is a network of good friends, not family, that helps you live longer.

First, the study was done in Australia over a 10 year period. We all know that Oz has poison snakes, crocs, and more natural hazards than most of us live with. The study doesn't mention "cause of death" at all.

Second, I happen to be friends with some of my family. Not ALL of them, it's not possible, we are too diverse, but with some of them I call them up just to go do stuff with for fun. We talk about things that are important to us and just hang with each other. Friends.

Third, they never mention pets. If the big bad happened and I lost the mate (throwing salt over the shoulder, knocking on wood, turning three times windershins) I don't know anyone that could make me get out of the bed, much less the house, for a long time. But the pets can't wait. They are also my friends and they depend on my opposable thumbs to turn door knobs and faucets to fill their water buckets. I'm going to have to get up, like it or lump it, or they will just line up by the bed and meow, whine, bark and pitty paw me till they are cared for. I have to go out to let them in. I have to get up to let them out. I have to live, no one will take my four animals together to a good home.

So, pretty much I feel the study is a joke. I believe it is being interested in something outside of yourself that keeps you living. Even if it is only what happens next on your soaps (ick), you feel like you have to see how it comes out. The trick then, is to be interested in something YOU feel is important; serving a meal at a soup kitchen; helping a neighbor learn to read, sew, fish, crochet;organizing a sit in to protest age discrimination; whatever, staying involved with life will keep you interested in living.

What do you think?