Dear ASK: I am a reasonably fit 68 year-old. I eat healthful food, drink moderately, exercise daily and think I am doing all the right things. Yet my sister, two years younger, has many health problems, like high blood pressure and 40 pounds of overweight, and lives in a family full of drama and stress. I got a call from her last week. She was in tears, saying she was in the emergency room, with heart pains. Of course, she was petrified, and the entire family was concerned. I feel angry because I think she could have avoided the heart attack if she would have paid attention to the facts about her health and listened to me! Some of my friends say things like “She brought it on herself.” It’s true, but it does not help at all. How can I reply gracefully in a way that gets the point across? How can I best help my sister change? Signed: I-told-you-so etiquette! Dear I-told-you-so etiquette: It really hurts when you see people you care about walk a path into harm; you see the reality, yet they do not pay attention to your warnings. You feel like delivering a swift kick in the behind, but that would get you into a fight. Maybe, just maybe, you can share someone else’s story with your sister and she would see herself in it and change. She might not ever change. She is living her life. Unfortunately, people often turn to food to self-medicate because of some deep pain unacknowledged and untreated. (I confess to that in my past, but not now.) It is difficult, if not impossible, to get someone to really look at himself or herself and deal with a long-held problem. At the far end of the eating spectrum, some people choose to overeat unto death. Although at times we accept wisdom from others, we all have our own journey, and sometimes we are on a sad trail. At 3 a.m., the phone rings. A man I’ve known for more than 40 years was in the emergency room having a heart attack. The nurse said, “It is critical, and it doesn’t look good.” They say in times of stress your whole life flashes before your eyes. This was one of them. This man’s life unrolled in my mind’s eye, my memory. Year after year, he continued to smoke, stating to all who advised against it, “There are many 100-year-old people who smoke.” The implication was that he would be one of them. The doctor said on many occasions, “Eat more fruits and vegetables for better nutrition.” He continued to get fast food or ate whatever was in front of him, taking no ownership. He was told, “Exercise to shed stress and pounds.” He replied, “I already do a physical job, and I am too tired to exercise after work,” going home and slouching in front of the TV. Sorrowfully, this man suffered a great deal of pain, such as diverticulitis attacks, major hemorrhoid pain and surgery and now a heart attack. Self-inflicted? You bet. Do those who love him feel frustration, anger and fear? We sure do! Will he change his thinking and his habits to save his own life? We do not know yet. We still must deal with the “I told you so” comments from family and friends. What if we held up the mirror to them to follow the path implied: Oh, so you told him so! What did you tell him, exactly? Oh, has anyone ever told you so, and how did you react? Oh, can you think of a more compassionate statement to say right now? Oh, did you ask why he was doing such a potentially harmful behavior? One concept that might explain our urge to say this to others is hindsight bias. We rewrite history! Wikipedia has a lot to say about it, including how upon recovery, “After a crisis, the person also experiences motivated forgetting. Following a negative outcome of a situation, people do not want to accept blame. Instead of accepting their role in the event, they might either view themselves as caught up in a situation that was unforeseeable with them, therefore not being the culprits, or view the situation as inevitable with there therefore being nothing that could have been done to prevent it. Events in life can be hard to control or predict. It is no surprise that people want to view themselves in a more positive light and do not want to take responsibility for situations they could have altered. This leads to hindsight bias.” In summary, people who refuse to accept personal responsibility often head straight into major pain. There are consequences, dear friend, but we cannot force anyone to accept our advice or make someone change. Change must be motivated from within. Perhaps we must simply accept our loved ones for who they are exactly, flaws and all. After all, that is what we wish for ourselves, isn’t it? 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