Conclusion: Adherence Generalized

Abstract

Not conforming to the principle of foresight, described in this book (Chap. 7), leads to nonadherence. This principle, whose intervention would allow patient adherence, could be called on to help with all incontinent actions which may have potentially serious consequences for our future . This explanation would allow us to define adherence in a general sense, as acceptance to perform certain actions when we believe their consequences could positively influence not only our immediate, but also our long-term, future. Included among these actions is everything that concerns one’s health , but also being sober, buckling one’s seatbelt, crossing at the crosswalk, avoiding risky situations, and, for some, believing in an afterlife. In sum, the phenomena of adherence and nonadherence concern everything that is vital to us, as opposed to everything that leads us to death. Adherence and nonadherence emerge as the medical counterparts of Eros and Thanatos Freudian principles. Then what answer to give, at the end of this study, to the question: why do we take care of ourselves? We take care of ourselves, if we have a reason to do it, and the reason is the desire —the sustained intention —which confers priority status to the option of arriving healthy and safe at the end of our voyage. We take care of ourselves because it is natural for us to love ourselves just as it is natural to love our children. Here I follow Harry Frankfurt in his celebration of self-love, the highest thing of all, according to Spinoza.

Happy the man who, like Ulysses , has traveled well, or like that man who conquered the fleece, and has then returned, full of experience and wisdom, to live among his kinfolk the rest of his life .

Joachim du Bellay , Regrets