It is true that with everything we are exposed to these days, minimizing risks where known is a good thing.
I tend to be a little more risk tolerant than many, but I find the older I get, the more risk-averse I become. I think it has to do with a lot of things including a) real world experience b) knowledge that as I age, I have become more fragile... I mean really, even a cold is harder to get over (although I do feel a bit like I've stepped back in time) as well as some risks I have taken in the past that I KNOW have probably reduced my life-expectancy by a fair amount, as well as my quality of life (we're talking major, life style things.)
I used to think "Live fast, die pretty" was a valuable motto in the day. I have changed it to "Live as long as you can, leaving behind a wizened, ugly corpse with arthritis and dentures," to be more realistic, although my doc informs me via some test that I will get arthritis in my mid-90s. LOL. To be fair, the women in my family tend to DIE old, but IDK about "mid nineties" although both my grandmothers lived into their nineties and my mom is 70. She has some arthritis, I don't, but I blame yoga for that one.
Seriously though, everything's a tradeoff. I got so thin my last few years smoking, I have actually LAID off the yoga on purpose because I couldn't keep body fat to save my life.... I figure with another 10 lbs on board, it may be easier to go back to it and not skeletalize myself. The dentures I already have, but that was a "special" situation.
Also, I find as I age, I only grow happier, and I certainly wasn't expecting that outcome, so why risk my precious "good times" any more than I must?
My first therapist told me I'd get happier the older I got. She also told me I'd quit smoking someday. She was kind of my spiritual mom, but I did not believe her in the slightest. I now kind of do...
With that said, most forms of vaping are going to be infinitely more safe than cigarettes, and I will repeat, again, for those intimidated by the idea of TC, there are THINGS still to be done to minimize risk. I'm never going to give up on my Nautilus coils, and they can't do TC. I do use distilled water AND PEG400 to thin my vape, and not only is it noticeably cooler (and I rotate my setups when chainvaping) the vape is actually improved, which I did not expect. Knowing your atomizer, your tank, your e-liquid and safest practices have all IMPROVED my non-TC vaping, even without using TC (which I use when it's applicable/indicated) and not only that, they didn't just cool my tanks, they improved my vape.
There is valuable information on this thread even for non-TC vapers should they choose to heed it. Even WITHOUT those best practices, I felt health improvements right away, and I feel them even more. TC can be finicky, hard to set up, and intimidating at first, but I see absolutely no reason that ONE person cannot find at least ONE piece of information on this thread to improve their vape, and I actually read this thread from the beginning (as a new vaper, freaking out, going OH I MUST TC TO LIVE). That's not actually accurate, but what IS accurate is that there are valuable takeaways from this thread for ANYONE.
Just try not to get too freaked out about it in the beginning, is my advice. It did get me to RTAs more quickly, another thing I am grateful for.
Also, there is only so much precision you need in life in order to make conclusions from data. You'd be amazed at some of the stuff folks and cultures have been able to discover (including genetics, which I believe was started by a Franciscan monk gardener, IIRC, without sophisticated measuring tools.)
Good luck to all and I think this thread has been one of the more useful ones on ECF (for me).
:Anna
