While laying in bed early in the morning, I started thinking about the way dogs age.  It's now understood that small dogs age slower than big ones.  Vets now have charts on their walls to estimate the human equivalent age.  Very small dogs will live sixteen years, medium size dogs about 13-14 years, large dogs 10-12 years.  
    Why is that?  That is certainly not the rule for animals in general.  If it was, a fruit fly would live much longer than a rhino beetle.  A house cat should live much longer than a tiger but, in fact, both have the same life expectancy.  A flea should live a million times longer than an elephant.  Maybe our attitude has something to do with it.
    Our beliefs, attitudes and expectations are known to have an effect on us and the world around us.  Recent quantum theories indicate that the effect may be greater than most of us realize.  
    So let's take a look at dogs again. Could it be that decades ago the type of people who got dogs of different sizes had different attitudes about life expectancy?  Did the people who got small dogs just assume they would live fifteen or sixteen years, so they did?  Did the people who got large dogs only expect them to live ten or eleven years and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy?  I don't know, but I suspect our beliefs and expectations are playing a part.
    Let's look at human aging.  Every few months you see in the news some very old person being asked why they think they've lived so long (as if they actually knew).   The answers very greatly, but I don't think I have ever heard one of these people say something like: "It beats me!  I expected to die thirty years ago!".  None of them ever seem to be very surprised that they have lived so long, and that attitude may explain to a large extent, why they have.