How long will you live? Longer than you think, study finds

By Dylan Stableford 7 hours ago Yahoo News

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Residents from a nearby senior citizen facility sit at the edge of the boardwalk on the first day of fall, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014, in Seaside Park, N.J. (Mel Evans/AP)

How long will you live? Probably much longer than you think, the Washington Post reports.
In 1992, the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study asked 26,000 Americans over the age of 50 what they thought the chances were they'd live to the age of 75. Now, nearly 24 years later, researchers at the Brookings Institution have calculated to see if they were right.
"In general, people wildly underestimated their chances of reaching 75," Christopher Ingraham writes on the Post's Wonk Blog.
• In 1992, 7 percent of respondents gave themselves "zero" chance to reach 75. But nearly half (49.2 percent) lived to 75 or longer.

• Among respondents who gave themselves a 50 percent chance of living to 75, 75 percent lived to that age or longer.

• And among those who said they were "100 percent" certain of living to the age of 75, nearly 8 in 10 (78.2 percent) did.

Life expectancy in the United States was 78.74 years in 2012, according to World Bank data, and 71 years worldwide.

There is no clear relationship between how long people think they'll live, and how long they actually do, Ingraham notes.

In fact, respondents who gave themselves at least a 10 percent chance of living to 75 had at least a 60 percent chance of doing so.

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Your best bet that you'll live to 75? Thinking you have a 90 percent chance, the study concluded.

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At 21 I gave myself until 25 as a maximum mostly because what I expected to do with my life wasn't going to happen. I broke up with the girl I was going to marry (both of them or all three of them or however I thought then) and only expected to live until 25. I also had to leave my childhood church and all my friends from there from all over the world. So, then when I was 25 I told my best friends "I think I'm going to have a long string of girlfriends the rest of my life. 6 months later my live in girlfriend was pregnant and before she gave birth I was married. So, except for 2 years of my life after that I have been married to one of three different women ever since and I'm now 66. 

So, I thought I would be gone having fun by 25. What did I do right? I exercised and ate good organic food and lived in places where I could have fun getting exercise that was fun in the mountains or Hawaii or at the beach mostly. So, I'm still riding a dualsport motorcycle for fun, skiing in the wintertime, hiking and climbing mountains and 4 wheel driving with friends at 66 still and traveling around the world when I can alone or with my wife and friends.

So, you better prepare for at least 75 to 100 in most cases because that likely will be the reality. 

Here is sort of the rule. If you live to be 30 you will also likely live to be 90. This is kind of how it generally works in life. (At least this is life in the United States).