'Longevity' Is Killing Our Vision of Living Better

Mention ‘longevity’ at a dinner party and watch the room divide: half the guests roll their eyes while the other half check their continuous glucose monitors. It conjures images of Silicon Valley bros treating Metformin like breath mints—another optimization fetish for the privileged and paranoid.

A few weeks ago, mentor of mine, impressively healthy 78-year-old physician, asked me a provoking question:

His message was interesting because it wasn't cynical. It was surrender wrapped in wisdom.

It was a valid perspective, but the wrong conversation.

We're often stuck arguing about the length of life while missing the whole point about its depth.

Perhaps that's because we're using the wrong word: longevity.

It’s a deceptive word that conjures images of anti-aging zealots clutching NAD+ supplements like rosary beads, praying to the Gods of eternal youth from inside their hyperbaric oxygen chambers.

"Oh, you're one of those people trying to live forever," they say; the dismissal wrapped in a knowing smirk. As if they've caught you joining some Silicon Valley immortality cult.

The word has become shorthand for an impossible quest: the pursuit of immortality.

Here's what's missing from this common narrative: longevity isn’t about living forever or denying death. It’s about one of humanity's most fundamental desires: to remain the protagonist of our own lives, rather than a fading shadow of who we once were. It's about staying fully, vibrantly you until the end.

Yet, we’re stuck with this clinical-sounding word because "still-climbing-stairs-at-70-ology" doesn't roll off the tongue.

When we talk about ‘longevity,’ we're actually talking about two distinct things, lifespan and healthspan. Think of your life like a book:

• Lifespan: The total number of pages in the book. This is how many years you will live.

• Healthspan: The quality of each page i.e. how well you can read and engage with the story. This means how many of those years you spend healthy, active, and capable of doing what matters to you.

What most people care about is healthspan. But we're stuck using ‘longevity,’ a sterile word that reduces life's symphony to a countdown.

When Simple Stories Fail Us

‘‘Quality of life’ has also become one of those phrases that floats in the ether of wellness blogs and doctor's offices.

But, what does it mean?

For me, it's about presence and capability:

• It's waking up without your joints performing their daily symphony of creaks and pops, your mind sharp enough to not just make morning coffee, but remember where you put it down.

• It's your body responding without hesitation when a toddler breaks into a sprint toward danger.

• It's striding into your 60s and 70s with the same confidence that carried you through your 40s, maybe a bit slower, but no less purposeful.

Every few weeks, someone tells me they'd rather live short and well than long and miserable, as if aging were a multiple-choice test with only two answers.

Here's the reality that demolishes this false dichotomy: the same actions that keep you vital—building strength, maintaining mobility, nourishing your body—are also your best shot at a longer life.

Quantity and quality of life often compete in the final years, but that’s not the stage of life we’re focused on here. For most of life leading up to that point, they’re not opposing forces. They’re the same damn arrow shot from different bows.

The questions we're asking are as broken as the words we're using. Instead of asking:"How long can I live?", we should ask: "How alive can I stay?"

Aging doesn't have to be a slow surrender, trading away pieces of yourself year after year.

So when people scoff at longevity as some pipe dream, I want to grab them by the shoulders (gently, with my well-maintained grip strength) and say: "You're missing the point. This isn't about rejecting mortality. It's about embracing vitality."

Authoring What's Next

My mentor's message carries weight: some parts of aging inevitably arrive like uninvited guests, ignoring our ‘do not disturb’ signs.

The slow dimming of vision, the gradual fade of hearing — these aren't always negotiable terms of our biological contract, and no amount of kale smoothies will magically restore your retina.

But we're standing at the edge of something unprecedented: a biotechnology revolution that's redefining what we consider ‘inevitable.’ Just as room-sized computers now dance on our wrists, today's ‘impossible’ aging challenges might become tomorrow's routine tune-ups.

There's a crucial caveat: these coming breakthroughs will favour the prepared. The choices you make in your 30s-50s aren't just about today. They're your admission ticket to tomorrow's innovations. You're either building the foundation to benefit from what's coming, or constructing barriers that will lock you out.

Hearing loss is one battle. Hearing loss while trapped in a body that's forgotten how to climb stairs is a war on multiple fronts.

We're fighting for the right to face time's challenges standing up and building a fortress of capability around our vulnerabilities.

I'm not chasing immortality. I'm chasing tomorrow's sunrise with today's strength. I'm fighting for the right to keep playing the game; not watching from the bench as my body forgets the rules.

We're claiming the right to define life on our terms, gripping the pen that writes our story before time becomes our unwanted ghostwriter. 

Is this worth caring about?

Only if you believe you should remain the author of your own story.

The question isn't: "How long do you want to live?"

It's: "How long do you want to remain yourself?"